MCEN30017: Mechanics & Materials

2 Lab reports for the practicals, each 7.5%
FEA (finite element analysis) report 20%
1 hr mid sem test for FEA in week 6 5%
3 hrs end of sem exam (only assess mechanics and materials no FEA) 60%

-Materials: We learn about atomic bonding from scratch, building up to crystal structures and on to dislocations, elastic and plastic deformations, stregthening and softening methods, fracture, fatigue, and creep. Many dislike the lectures while I find it actually pretty interesting. Granted the lecture slides are just copy paste from the textbook, and the way he lectures (points to the lecture slides and talks for an hour) may put you to sleep. However he actually shows us some videos about the implementation of the ideas we learn in class (like creep effects on airplane turbine) which is cool. Kenong assesses more stuff than just whatever is in the textbook (i.e. mechanism of plastic deformation) and this is not in his lecture slides but rather he explains it on the board so go to the lectures. He replies to my emails fast and doesnt really want to answer questions through email i.e. you have to make appointments with him. I did this and although granted he was your typical grumpy guy, he actually teaches me about how to answer the past exam questions that I attempted better and more coherent and gave me some study tips which really helped me to do well in the exam. So don't take his grumpiness personally when answering your emails and just go make consultations with him ;make sure you have attempted the question first. To pass the exam my advice is to read the book and do the suggested problems that he gives in the LMS as well as redo the prac questions (which is actually some of the suggested problems from the textbook which sucks). Also do the concept check questions in the Callister book they are very good in testing your understanding. On top of that Google and practuce some more questions from other unis; I did mine from MIT opencourse thing. My exam was very similar to the past exam (some question were just blatant copy paste) but then that might well change with your exam.
When you do your labs make sure you have read the textbook before you go do the lab so that you can ask questions to the demonstrator before its too late; especially read about polymer deformation stuff because it is not taught in lectures but you have to understand it in order to be able to do the lab reports. The demonstrators were good; they replied to my emails fast and didn't withheld information. The lab reports are long and tedious (generating a lot of graphs on excel and whatnot) so do it early.

FEA: You have to watch 12 15 mins lectures on youtube; that's the assessed content. The in class lectures are just explaining the importance of checking your FEA work and some stories about how FEA was used to create blablabla so not assessed. Nevertheless the lecturer also did some worked examples in the lectures. I didn't go to the in class lectures cause assignments are more important to do rather than listening to non assessed stuff. These stuff are assessed in the mid test only; nothing on FEA in the final exam. The mid test was easy; make sure you read the book and understand it to be able to do the mid test. Practice problems with solutions (problems copy pasted from the book) were available in LMS.
The other part of FEA is the workshops. It involves using CAD software Solidworks to do FEA using a computer rather than by hand. The demonstrators were excellent in both helping in class as well as clarifying questions about the assignment. The assignment was a pain in the neck; so many simulations to do and if you dont have Windows and have to use the uni computer you might have to wait for 2 hours for the FEA results to arise. The wordings were also a bit vague but the demonstrators were great in answering us; they answer through the discussion board. Do this assignment early on; there is a ton of questions to answer and you will not get it right the first time.

Mechanics: The lectures were alright I guess. Granted the lecturer sometimes make mistakes and whatnot but still the way he proves the theorems and his explanations were helpful for me. His lecture style (writes on the document camera) was excellent because his lecture pace is then the same with my note taking pace.The tutes are very important go to the tutes the tutors are great they explain things very well and answers ur questions thoroughly. You might be tempted to skip them because the lecturer will give out worked solutions but then again those solutions were sometimes wrong and the tutors will warn you about this in the tutes so go to the tutes! Get the book for mechanics and do the back of the book practice problems. Consult Hibbeler or some other textbooks for some topics that are not covered in the recommended textbook (e.g. virtual work). There is a ton of stuff that you need to remember and able to do for mechanics and my advice is to do as many problems as you can; even the ones that you think are too hard and won't likely be in the exam. Also consult other universities for practice problems (access the lecturer's web index) because more likely you're gonna get worked solutions that way compared to just doing problems from the book. You'll have to book consultations with Jason by email in Swotvac. The tutor also helps you during swotvac about any questions provided you email them first about it; they didnt mention their availability in class.
Overall this subject requires every single bit of your time; so many things jammed in so little time. Do everything early because you'll make mistakes and you'll need time to correct them. Teaching staff doesnt publish constulation times; gotta be proactive and email them about it. Don't take the rudeness of some of the teaching staff personally and just ask to meet them in person if you have any questions; they actually helped me more than I asked them for even though with a bit of a grumpiness. Rudeness doesn't mean apathy.

Yes with screen capture.

Dr Xia for Materials
Jason Monty for Mechanics
Dr Mohsen for FEA

Yes, about 3 in library some more was given in LMS

4 Out of 5

Callister WD Jr, Materials Science and Engineering 9th ed, Mechanics of Materials James M. Gere 8th edition, A first course in Finite Element by Jacob Fish any edition

3 lectures a week for 12 weeks (1 hr lectures)
1 1hr tutorials in weeks 1-6, 9-12: 5 for materials, 4 for mechanics
3 2hr FEA (Finite Element Analysis) workshops in the semester
2 2hr Practicals (both for materials) in the semester

sem 1 2016

94

Exam: 60%
2 Practicals: 15% (7.5% each)
FEA mid semester test: 5%
FEA assignment: 20%

was fair, but I could have done better. The materials component is alot like the past exams, and doing the tute and textbook questions were helpful.
There was NO FEA IN THE EXAM, since all of it was assessed in the assignment and midsem.

the mechanics component was tough and varied in each exam. Lack of content and terrible lectures made it harder than it should be. Another thing to note is that there is no formula sheet on the exam. They want you to understand the content or derive these formulas that youer better off just memorising.
Obviously this made it harder since there were atleast 20 formulas to know.
I guess this was done to limit the amount of H1s in the batch, since the exam could have been far worse than what everyone expected

this component is really helpful for both Mechanical and Civil, since it actually introduces the concept of CAD through SolidWorks that was taught really well in the Workshops.
The assignment was about designing a beam and bracket, and optimising its properties to reduce the total stresses applied in the material. It involves using your engineering knowledge to pick the best material and dimensions to improve the beam and the assignment was just about doing questions, it was more like a written assessment
The due date was right at the end of week 12, which made it annoying, and i would recommend it to not leave it at the last minute like I did.

The midsem of FEA was held during week 7, and the questions can get abit annoying, but its not too bad. There were a set of practice questions with fully worked solutions provided as a resource and going through them was sufficient enough to learn the content.

Yes, with screen capture

Dr Xia for Materials
Jason Monty for Mechanics
Dr Mohsen for FEA

The lectures were horrrible, and terribly coordinated, its what made the subject annoying and made me lose interest in the subject.

For the materials component, you cant even understand the guy, and he just repeats on whats written on the slides, which are a carbon cut copy of the textbook that only tell half the story.
Honestly,youre better off reading the lecture slides and reading the textbook, and you will be set in learning the materials component. The content begins with material chemistry that was taught in Engineering Materials (they teach it from scratch since its not a pre req) and then builds on things like material strengthening, softening, fracture, fatigue and crystallographic orientations. The concepts are not too bad, and the lecture slides were good enough to understand what type of questions will be asked

The mechanics lectures were terrible. Not only is the content like Engineering Mechanics on drugs, but the lecturer is never organised and constantly makes mistakes, which only makes it even harder to learn the content, since the only source of information to refer to, has mistakes. Lack of examples and constant derivation of complex formulas in the lectures only made things worse

Lastly there is the FEA component, which is taught during week 7, for the mid sem. There are about 12 online 15min lectures that you are required to watch, and the lectures in that week are just a summary of those online lectures. The content can be abit dry and tedious but luckily there are enough resources and practice questions to master this.

Yes, but no solutions

there were 2 practicals that were held,
1. Tensile testing
2. impact testing

the pracs themselves were chill and having small prac sessions were helpful since the tutors literally did the whole thing, which made it easier to avoid mistakes.
The reports were really long and tedious, and required alot of graphs and research for the discussion questions.
The textbook was really helpful and paraphrasing the theoretical concepts meant that anyone can do well on these reports.

2.5 Out of 5

Yes, a Prescribed textbook
Callister WD Jr, Materials Science and Engineering.

they are really helpful but there is no requirement to rock up to them. I for myself always attend tutorials since they serve as a good guideline by attempting exam style questions with explanations on how to do them. Unfortunately, the tutors were just rushing on the questions which for a slow poke like me, meant that I had to review the tutorial questions with the worked solutions again,
I would however recommend it for everyone since theyre really helpful in actually learning the component. Especially for the mechanics component that had disastrous lectures and lack of lecture examples.

3 1hr lectures each week
1 1hr tutorial each week
3 2hr FEA (Finite Element Analysis) workshops in the semester
2 2hr Practicals in the semester

2016 Sem 1

H2A

2 x 7.5% Materials Practical Reports
5% FEA Mid Semester Test
20% FEA Assignment Due at the end of sem
60% Final Exam (Only On Materials & Mechanics modules)

It’s tough to know where to begin with this subject as there is so much to talk about, and I wish I’d known much of this before I started it. So I’ll try starting with a short summary of my experience with the subject as a whole, and break it up in detail for each module at the bottom.

Ok here goes. While this is probably not the worst subject ever, it is without a doubt the worst taught subject have ever done at uni so far, and the experience was pretty much the same for a lot of others that did it. Some of the teaching staff are perhaps the most useless that I have come across to date, with some of them at times not caring whether you have even been taught what is required properly, let alone whether you pass or fail. With them often taking their teaching duties as simply something they have to do, rather than actually want to do. This makes it incredibly difficult at times to not only understand the content, but also to understand what is even being taught, and what it is that we even need to know. (There were shortcuts and methods to solve things in Materials in particular that weren’t covered in the lectures or tutorials at all, but came up in the exam, and which we only learnt about whilst doing the past exams when my friend and I searched online for help). This is further compounded by the subject being totally fragmented; with it being horribly organized and teaching staff not having any conversation whatsoever with those from within their own module itself, let alone the others. So often you’re left with a predicament where the lecturer teaches you one thing, and says this is how it should be done, only for a tutor or demonstrator in the tute/workshop to totally contradict them, leaving you scratching your head.
It however is not a very tough subject to do well in as certain content, and the exam in particular is fairly repetitive with at least half the questions in my exam occurring in past years word for word. Which means that if you put in the effort and actually understand the content during semester as well as do all the past exams, you can know the answers to many of the questions before you even start solving them. It’s a subject that you will need to teach yourself a fair bit at times, so the key is to constantly be up to date, and across all the concepts that are being covered, else it’s easy to turn up in SWOTVAC struggling to pass it. The key is to not fall behind, ensuring you understand everything, and you can have a calm build up to the exam.

The subject is split into three parts, Materials, FEA & Mechanics. With Materials Lectures running from Week 1-5, FEA Week 6-7, and Mechanics Week 8-12. The Materials part is fairly dry, with Kenong taking a read straight off the slides and explain every tiny thing in painstaking detail approach for the majority of the module, and his slides have a lot of information on them. He however I think purposely gives exam clues which he explains on the whiteboard rather than have it on the slides and thus doesn’t get recorded on Lectopia as perhaps a reward to those who turn up. This is kinda infuriating and unfair for those like me who had a clash for one of the lectures each week, let alone people who go over lecture recordings again to revise, so I’d recommend you go to his lectures and do what ever you can to ensure you pay attention in them even if they do get really boring at times. Also, Kenong can at times be tough to reach and kind of rude over email, often refusing to answer questions or indirectly telling you to work it out yourself so I’d recommend getting a hold of him after lectures if you have any questions as he’s much nicer then.
The 2 practicals for materials are weighted 7.5% each, and are on Tensile and Impact Testing respectively. They are run by Farzan who explains the prac and what he expects of you in the report very well, and whilst the Reports require some time and effort, it can be easy marks for those who paid attention to him when he was talking. The tutorials are fairly boring with the Eng standard of a tutor at the front working out problems on the board without thorough explanation whilst everyone just sits there and copies it whether they understand or not, so it is at times a waste as attendance isn’t marked, but I’d say its best to go and get an idea of what sort of questions might turn up in the exam if nothing else. There are tonnes of questions per tute however, and the tutor never goes through all of them, so you should expect to go over the rest of them at home.

The FEA part is taught in a “flipped classroom” approach, where you are given the links to 12 lectures of around 12-15 minutes on Youtube beforehand, and you got to listen to 3/4 usually before going to the in-class lecture. Personally, the in-class lectures are a total and utter waste of your time, and I stopped going after the first one. From what I heard from my friends, they got pretty horrible, with the lecturer once spending 30 minutes on a calculation only to find out he’d made a mistake on the first page, and chose to end the lecture there and tell everyone to work it out themselves at home. The content in FEA is fairly straightforward, but they manage to complicate it rather unnecessarily, so I’d say its best to just use the online lectures as a guide and teach it yourself, as the Midsem is only on FEA and it occurs only a couple of days after the last in-class lecture.
The workshops for FEA are barely related to the content in the lectures or the midsem which struct me as odd initially, but I soon forgot about it as we started using Solidworks to create loading situations of beams, running simulations of that, and though only an introduction, learning how things are actually done in industry. The workshops and using Solidworks was possibly the saving grace for the subject and my favourite part of it as it was incredibly fun, with it being for many people the first time they were doing something like this. The assignment that is the end aim of the workshops however can be incredibly infuriating as it is horribly worded, and incredibly vague, with any one of 5 things at times being a possible answer. This along with very little guidance from the tutors who initially refused to provide any substantial help on something that is worth 20% of the subject, before they realised nearly everyone was absolutely screwed for the assignment and started helping like mad on Discussion Board with 2-3 days before the assignment was due. This led many to work together in groups of 5-6 and bounce ideas off each other, as well as compare with other groups which is basically what got us through it.

The Mechanics module is likely the best of the three, but coming from Engineering Mechanics the semester before; the direct precursor to this which though it was incredibly difficult, was also the best organised and managed subject I’ve done so far, (likely because I was lucky enough to have Hancock as my tutor) will take a bit of a learning curve. Mechanics is generally the module that most students struggle with as a result as the lectures comprising mostly of derivations of equations by Jason off the top of his head in the lecture itself with no specific lecture notes or slides for students to refer to, but rather just a general book on the topics that Jason had put together around 5 years back, and of which around 30-40% he no longer teaches. Much of the rest of the book being stuff that he now teaches differently as students have struggled with it in the past. Lectures therefore can get incredibly messy and confusing leaving you wondering what is even going on. The tutorials therefore become incredibly important and both tutors are luckily very good at what they do, so the key is to ask as many questions as you can of them, and perhaps follow up with questions to Jason after lectures (Jason can also be tough to reach over email, at times choosing to just ignore you, so it’s best to get a hold of him after lectures again), ensuring that you totally understand everything as when it comes to the mechanics module in the exam, its almost a case of all or nothing for marks. You either know what to do in the question in which case you will get around 8 or more out of 10, or you don’t and you will at best get 1 or 2 marks. Furthermore, there is a significant divide between methods, standards, naming conventions etc that are used between the tutors and Jason, so thats something that you will need to take account of when answering questions in the exam as end of the day, Jason is the one marking, so comply with that as much as possible, but also use certain methods the tutor has taught whilst conforming to the naming conventions and standards of Jason as it is easier at times.

Just a final note on the exam, whilst the Materials and Mechanics modules are weighted evenly (50-50), the actual marks for each are horribly skewed. With Materials being out of 100, whilst Mechanics is only out of 30. (Just another quirk of this subject you got to put up with I guess). So as a result, every mark for Mechanics you get in the exam is basically another mark for the subject. Therefore, it’s good to ensure that you’re on top of it, even if you’re not totally 100% with Materials, which most people don’t realise until the last minute by which point they have basically given up on Mechanics. Materials is the section that has a few questions repeated word for word every year, with at least 4 or so others being very slight deviations with changes in values and nothing else. It is therefore fairly easy to get marks in it if you do the past exams.
In summary, for those of you doing a Mechanical Major, this subject is a core and you have to do it. Though the subject is incredibly annoying, and you often just want to give up with everything you face, just put up with everything the subject throws at you for a semester and get through it is my advice. From what I’ve heard, things get much better in Masters. For those of you from Mechatronics or other Engineering Majors who are perhaps looking at taking this as an elective (there were a few in my semester who did this and ended up seriously regretting it), I’d strongly advise you not to, as it’s not worth the time or effort, not to mention the money. I just hope that something changes with this subject as the content itself is pretty good, just that the lazy teaching staff make it really unbearable.

Yes, with screen capture, but Kenong always uses a laser pointer and often writes stuff on the board that isn’t on the slides but comes up in the exam, and the Mechanics lectures are really hard to understand with just lecture recordings as Jason uses both document cameras to explain. Which means in both cases you're missing out on something or the other, so I’d strongly recommend going to the lectures.

Dr. Kenong Xia (Materials)
Dr. Mohsen Talei (FEA)
Associate Professor Jason Monty (Mechanics)

Yes, no answers provided, but crowd sourced for the Materials module at least is available on Facebook.

2 Out of 5

Materials Science & Engineering - An Introduction is strongly recommended by Kenong for the Materials part and he tells you to read certain parts after every lecture, but personally reckon it’s a waste as it only really helps for a few marks in the first Materials Practical. Maybe just download the PDF for this part.

3 x One Hour Lectures Weekly
1 x One Hour Tute Weekly
2 x Three Hour Materials Pracs sometime during semester
4 x Two Hour FEA Workshops (from Week 7-10)

Semester 1, 2016

87 [H1]