Abstract:

The teaching of materials science is essential for chemical engineers. This subject has to make the students understand how the composition or treatment that is given to a certain material has an influence on the properties and the final use that can be given to that material. This kind of subjects has usually combined theory with problems and laboratory practice, and good results have been obtained. The laboratory practices usually were mechanical testing of materials, metallography, and some other characterization techniques such as electronic microscopy or X-ray diffraction. It is true that the learning of these techniques is useful in the formation of the engineering students, because it helps them to understand the physical and mechanical phenomena that affect the properties of the materials. But on the other hand, it is also true that in the companies, the testing is not usually done by the engineers. The work of the engineers is more focused on the understanding and the office work with the data resulting from those tests.
From the point of view of the applied work of an engineer, it seems more useful to acquire skills related to the computer work with real data (that were previously selected) in a computer practice instead of obtaining these data in a laboratory practice. In those sessions the students have to solve real problems, such as determining the mechanical properties of a metallic or a polymeric material, studying the microstructure using digital images, or calculating the accurate dosage for fabricating a cement with given properties.
The practices started last course, and the results were satisfactory from the point of view of the qualifications obtained by the students, and also from their satisfaction. At the end of the sessions they had the feeling that they had learnt something about the real work and this fact encouraged them with the studying of the subject.

Keywords:

Computer practice, skills, material science.