Materials science and technology: an overview of databases online and on CDROM
| Published date | 01 April 1993 |
| Date | 01 April 1993 |
| Pages | 327-334 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045255 |
| Author | Jill Feldt |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Article
Materials science and
technology: an overview of
databases online and on
CDROM
Jill Feldt
Materials
Information,
The Institute
of Materials,
1
Carlton House
Terrace,
London
SW1Y
5DB,
UK.
Abstract: This paper is a practical introduction to
searching for bibliographic information on engineering
materials. It
is
not intended as a 'how-to' guide;
rather,
its
aim is to open a window on the databases that are available
and illustrate the all-encompassing nature of the study of
materials science and technology. Databases in languages
other than English, full-text sources and purely numeric
databanks are not
included.
1.
Introduction
Materials engineering impinges on most areas of scientific
and technological development — from shipbuilding and
aerospace to medicine and food manufacture. The number of
databases that contain information on materials is therefore
very large. In carrying out the research for this paper I found
myself dealing with around one hundred potentially useful
bibliographic files; some of them very wide-ranging in their
coverage, others smaller and more specialised. In the follow-
ing pages, I hope to give practical background information
which will show you what is available, help you select the
databases that contain the information that you need, and di-
rect you along the route to a successful search result.
Tables
1,
2,
3
and 4 give select lists of databases containing
substantial amounts of information on engineering materials.
Readers should note that this paper does not attempt to assess
the databases critically or to provide any detailed compari-
sons between them; rather, it serves as an eye-opener to whet
the appetite and provide a fund of ideas about searching in the
materials field. The listings of databases do not claim to be
comprehensive, not least because they are compiled from a
UK perspective.
Most of the databases mentioned in this paper are in the
English language. Note, however, that it may be necessary to
use American spelling and terminology in your
search.
Those
databases in other languages all have searchable English ti-
tles,
abstracts or index terms.
2.
Materials technology and terminology
2.1.
Types
of materials
It will be helpful at this stage to set the scene by introducing
the main types of materials commonly used in engineering
applications today — metals, polymers, ceramics and com-
posites. At the frontiers of research, the dividing lines be-
tween these traditional categories are becoming increasingly
blurred but it is hoped that the brief notes here and in the
Appendix will provide a useful framework in which to con-
ceptualise database search strategies.
• Metals are one of the oldest engineering materials
known to Man and they have played an important part
in our
history.
Today, the applications of metals — both
traditional and more recently developed, familiar and
unfamiliar — are numerous.
• Polymers, materials comprising giant chain molecules,
are commonly referred to as
'plastics'.
This is
something of a misnomer because, in engineering
terms,
plastic materials are those which deform
permanently when strained. Many polymers have a
very good degree of elasticity, making them capable of
being bent, twisted or stretched and then returning to
their original shape when the stress is removed.
Polymers are particularly suitable for applications
where weight reduction is beneficial and polymer fibres
have a prominent role in the textile industry.
• To the layman a ceramic is a
brittle,
even delicate
material which might be difficult to imagine in an
engineering context. However, ceramics are materials
with high melting points and good resistance to
abrasion and wear, making them eminently suitable for
many specialist engineering uses.
• Composite materials, in the broadest sense, are
combinations of materials which have their own
distinctive properties — better
than,
or radically
different from, the properties of each of their
constituent
parts.
In modern materials engineering,
composites generally consist of
fibres,
filaments or
other reinforcing particles inside a matrix.
(A
familiar
example is fibre glass, where glass fibres are embedded
in
a
polymer matrix.) Physical and mechanical
properties can be tailored to particular applications, and
this is a major reason for the tremendous importance of
these materials.
The Electronic Library, Vol.
11,
No. 4/5, August/October 1993 327
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