Materials and our environment: striving for sustainability

Aims

This course aims to: 

• increase your awareness of the impact of materials on our environment and carrying-out an assessment of material (and product) life cycles to inform design choices
   
• develop an appreciation of the interrelated nature of materials, engineering and society (including cultural and historical contexts), and reflection on how technological advancements lead to new solutions and new challenges
   
• help you to apply critical and creative thinking in solving problems with the multi-/inter-disciplinary confluence of materials, engineering, and design

Content

This course will introduce you to the multi-disciplinary confluence of materials, engineering, history, biology, and ergonomics to enable creative inter-disciplinary design of more sustainable products. Taking a journey through the interconnected history and evolution of materials with our natural and built environments, we will begin by identifying various classes of ancient and advanced engineering materials, their enabling properties and end-use in products. Through this journey, we will explore how materials have shaped our diverse society as well as how society has shaped materials-based technologies.

Considering the life-cycle of a material, we examine and assess how and how much a product impacts our natural environment, and what design choices we can make to reduce impact. We will also look at how biology generates solutions, and how through philosophies of biomimetics we may learn from Nature. We then delve deeper into our materials world and by focusing on classes of materials, reflect on how advancements in materials and materials-related technologies have led to unique opportunities – think timber for skyscrapers - and presented new challenges – think the ocean plastic problem. On this course we will explore natural materials, fibres and textiles, plastics and composites, ceramics (earth, brick, concrete) and glasses. We will explore these in the context of applications in fashion and sport, building and construction, transportation and energy, packaging and health. 

Presentation of the course 

Each session will typically begin with a 45-60min interactive lecture to engage you with new subject matter. Lecture slides will be made available to you on VLE in advance of the lecture - you may (but are not expected to) read through them in advance of the lecture. For the remaining 30-45 minutes of each session, we will use a combination of hands-on activities, worked examples and design exercises, and group discussion and seminar formats to crystallise and apply what we have explored in the lectures. For some sessions, we may use a ‘flipped-lecture’ approach, where we start with an interactive learning activity, and follow on with a lecture.

Course sessions

1. Why Materials Matter? 
   An introduction to the key classes of materials, their properties, and applications, and how these have evolved over thousands of years to shape our society. We will consider how many of our current Sustainable Development Goals and Global Challenges are interlinked 
   with materials.
    
2. Material Cultures and Perceptions
   Considering our own relationships with materials and products, we explore how material ‘cultures’ and ‘perception’ influence their uses and successes (or failures!).
    
3. Biomimetics: Learning design from Nature
   Considering Nature and organisms as expert designers, we consider how technology can learn from biology. Exploring the spider’s silken web as a case study natural structure, we explore concepts of bioinspiration and biomimetics for smart and sustainable design.
    
4. The Life Cycle of a Product
   We then focus on the impact of materials and product life cycles (extraction, processing, use, disposal, and so on) on the natural environment. Using specific examples, we consider concepts and analytical approaches to measure the environmental impact, recognising the various challenges along the way.
    
5. The Age of Plastics
   What were our ancient plastics, how did plastics become a victim of their own success, and where to next in terms of natural alternatives and disposal options? 
    
6. Fibres and Composites
   We further explore composites as ubiquitous materials and how plant fibres can augment the performance of plastics for use in high-performance applications, such as automotive and marine applications.
    
7. The Blue Economy
   We introduce the concept of a circular economy and what it means for materials, products, and design. We carry out a product disassembly exercise to unravel challenges of complex, multi-material/component products, and how design, skill/technology and policy may help us progress towards circular approaches.
    
8. Greening our Buildings
   What is the scale of our concrete addiction and what are environmentally wise materials choices for our future buildings? How can we transform wood into a reliable material for construction of super-tall buildings, and what are its implications on forest sustainability?
    
9. Sustainability in Fashion and Sports
   Using sporting gear such as running shoes, apparel and clothing, cricket bats and gloves as examples, we consider how materials and design come together to deliver high-performance, and how the sports sector is grappling with issues of waste.
    
10. Group design exercise
    Amalgamating what you have learned in the course, in interdisciplinary groups, you will design a product to meet specific user needs, selecting materials with environmental impact in mind. Present A3-sized poster to class.

Learning outcomes

You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course. 

The learning outcomes for this course are:

• to develop an awareness of the impact of materials on our environment, and carrying-out an assessment of material (and product) life cycles to inform design choices
   
• to develop an appreciation of the interrelated nature of materials engineering and society (including cultural and historical contexts), and reflection on how technological advancements lead to new solutions and new challenges
   
• To be able to apply critical and creative thinking in solving problems with the multi-/inter-disciplinary confluence of materials, engineering, and design

Required reading: 

Allwood, J, M, and Cullen, J, M, Sustainable Materials - with both eyes open 
(Cambridge: UIT 2011) Chapters 2, 5, 12, 15-17, 20-22, 24, 25. ISBN: 9781906860059
This will be available on the VLE as a PDF. 
Also available to download free online: https://www.uselessgroup.org/publications/book/chapters

This is also a useful reference book, presented with more graphics and numbers. The focus is on metals, but the principles apply to other materials as well. Chapter 2, 5, 24, and 25 are particularly interesting.

OR

Ashby, M, F, Materials and the Environment: Eco-informed Material Choice, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann 2009, 2nd Edition) Chapters 1, 3, 4, 9, 12.
This will be available on the VLE as a PDF. Also available to download free online: https://vle.iceonline.cam.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=1489582&forceview=1

This is a useful reference book, which is also complementary to the CES EduPack educational software. The proposed chapters are relevant reads, and skimming through them is recommended.

Typical week: Monday to Friday 

Courses run from Monday to Friday. For each week of study, you select a morning (Am) course and an afternoon (Pm) course. The maximum class size is 25 students.   

Courses are complemented by a series of daily plenary lectures, exploring new ideas in a wide range of disciplines. To add to your learning experience, we are also planning additional evening talks and events. 

Evaluation and Academic Credit  

If you are seeking to enhance your own study experience, or earn academic credit from your Cambridge Summer Programme studies at your home institution, you can submit written work for assessment for one or more of your courses.  

Essay questions are set and assessed against the University of Cambridge standard by your Course Director, a list of essay questions can be found in the Course Materials. Essays are submitted two weeks after the end of each course, so those studying for multiple weeks need to plan their time accordingly. There is an evaluation fee of £75 per essay. 

For more information about writing essays see Evaluation and Academic Credit. 

Certificate of attendance 

A certificate of attendance will be sent to you electronically after the programme.