Abstract:

The aim of this work is to describe a teaching experience in the subject of Materials Science worked in different subjects at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. The main objective of this method was to motivate and stimulate the student's interest by analyzing real examples of catastrophic failure accidents in the aerospace and aeronautical industry.

The case study described in this experience was that of the Challenger shuttle accident and the Cometa plane accident. To check the validity of the teaching experience, it was taken into account:
(1) the perception of students compared to the traditional teaching method.
(2) The positive results obtained through the evaluation proposed in the official study planning.

Collaterally, ethical sense and good practice are discussed and worked on a subject that is very important and sometimes little worked in our classrooms. It can be concluded that the use of the Inverse Engineering methodology is of great interest to students and allows us to explain some basic concepts of Materials Science in a more global way than when they are traditionally explained in a master and common class.

Keywords:

Educational experience, Inverse engineering, Material science.