Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Engineering Materials I
(MEng 2122)

Compiled by: Ayalsew Dagnew June, 2022

(MSc. Aerospace Eng`g)
Chapter - 3

Structure of Crystalline Solids

Structure of Crystalline Solids

Content Outline:

 Introduction to Crystal Structure

 Crystal Structures
 Crystallographic Points, Directions &
Planes
 Crystalline Materials
 Non-Crystalline Materials
 Why we Study the Structure of Crystalline Solids?

 To understand structure of solid materials.

 To identify the difference between crystalline and noncrystalline

materials.
 To come up with the concept, properties of some materials directly
related to their crystal structures.

 Understand the significant property differences exist between

crystalline and noncrystalline materials having the same composition.

 Therefore, this intends to study the structural properties of solids.

 Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
 Describe the difference in atomic/molecular
 Sketch the direction corresponding to
structure b/n crystalline and noncrystalline
given three direction indexes in a unit cell.
materials.
 Specify the Miller indices for a plane that
 Draw unit cells for FCC, BCC, and HCP
has been drawn within a unit cell.
crystal structures.
 Describe how FCC and HCP crystal
 Derive the relationships b/n unit cell edge
structures may be generated by the
length and atomic radius for FCC, BCC and
stacking of close-packed planes of atoms.
HCP crystal structures.
 Distinguish b/n single crystals and
 Compute the densities for metals having FCC
polycrystalline materials.
and BCC crystal structures given their unit
 Define isotropy and anisotropy.
cell dimensions.
 Introduction to Crystal Structure
Crystal structure:
 The present discussion is devoted to the next level of the structure of materials, specifically, to
some of the arrangements that may be assumed by atoms in the solid state. Within this
framework, concepts of crystallinity and noncrystallinity are introduced.
• Crystallinity: refers to the degree of structural order in a solid, and the atoms or
molecules are arranged in a regular periodic manner.
 The degree of crystallinity has a big influence on hardness, density, transparency and
diffusion.
• Non-crystallinity: also called amorphous, is a solid that lacks the long-range order that
is characteristic of a crystal.
 Introduction to Crystal Structure

 The three common crystal structures found in metals are expressed by

crystallographic points, directions, and planes.
 A crystalline solid can either be a single crystalline or a polycrystalline.
 The determination of crystal structures experimentally using x-ray diffraction
techniques are also studied.

Crystallinity increases Amorphous Crystallinity

 Crystal Structures
Fundamental Concepts
 Solid materials may be classified according to the regularity with which atoms or ions
are arranged with respect to one another.
 A crystalline material is one in which the atoms are arranged in a repeating or periodic array
over large atomic distances.
 Under normal solidification conditions the following materials can form crystalline structures.
• all metals,
• many ceramics, and
• certain polymers.
 Those that do not crystallize are called noncrystalline materials. They also called amorphous
materials.
 In noncrystalline materials the long-range atomic order is absent.
 Crystal Structures
Fundamental Concepts

 Properties of crystalline solids depend on the crystal structure of the material.

Which means affecting by the atoms, ions, or molecules arrangement.

 There are extremely large number of different crystal structures having long-range atomic

order.

 These crystal structures vary from simple to complex materials.

• The simplest crystal structures are belong to → metals

• The complex crystal structures are refers to → ceramics and polymers

 Crystal Structures
Fundamental Concepts
 When crystalline structures are described, atoms or ions are considered as being solid
spheres having well-defined diameters.
 This is termed the atomic hard-sphere model in which spheres representing nearest-
neighbor atoms touch one another. [refer to Figure 3.1c]
 Sometimes the term lattice is used in the context of crystal structures.
 Lattice is a three-dimensional array of points coinciding with atom positions or sphere
centers.

Figure 3.1 For the face-centered cubic crystal structure, (a) a hard-sphere unit cell representation, (b) a reduced-sphere unit cell, and (c) an aggregate of many atoms.
 Crystal Structures
Unit Cell
What is a unit cell?
 A unit cell is the basic & smallest portion of a  A unit cell is chosen to represent the

crystal lattice that shows the three-dimensional symmetry of the crystal structure.

pattern of the entire crystal.  The unit cell is the basic structural unit or

 A crystal can be thought of as the same unit cell building block of the crystal structure.

repeated over & over in three dimensions.  A single unit cell may be chosen for a

 Atoms of crystalline solids forms – a repetitive particular crystal structure.

pattern.
 These repetitive substructure entities are called
unit cells.
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures
What is metallic crystal structure?
The cubic crystal system is a crystal system
Metallic crystal is a crystalline solid in which the atoms are held
where the unit cell is in the shape of a cube.
together by metallic bonds.
It is one of the most common and simplest
 The atomic bonding in this group of materials is metallic shapes found in crystals and minerals.
and thus nondirectional in nature.
 Most metallic crystal structures are dense atomic packing.
 Three simple crystal structures are found for most of the
common metals:
• Face-centered cubic /FCC/,
• Body-centered cubic /BCC/, and
• Hexagonal close-packed /HCP/. BCC FCC
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures
FCC Crystal Structure:
 Crystal structures of many metals has a unit cell
of cubic geometry.
 Atoms are located at each corners and six cube
faces.
 Some of the metals having FCC crystal structure
are: Cu, Al, Ag, and Au. [see Table 3.1]
 FCC unit cell consists of atoms representing as
spheres.
 These spheres or ion cores touch one another
across a face diagonal.
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures

 The cube edge length a and the atomic radius R are related through.
 Unit cell edge length for FCC;

 Metals with FCC crystal structure;

Al, Cu, Au, Pb, Ni, Pt, and Ag (refer Table 3.1).

Refer to Figure 3.1

 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures
 The number of atoms per unit cell (N) can  A total of four full atoms are assigned to a
be computed using the following formula: given FCC unit cell.
 Corner and face positions are really
equivalent.
Where; Ni - the number of interior atoms  Two important characteristics of a crystal
Nf - the number of face atoms structure are the;
Nc - the number of corner atoms. • coordination number and
 For the FCC crystal structure: Nc = 8, Nf = • atomic packing factor (APF).
6, and Ni = 0.  For metals, each atom has the same
Thus, from the above equation; number of nearest-neighbor or touching
atoms, which is the coordination number.
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures
What is coordination number?
 The APF is the sum of the sphere volumes of all
 For molecules and polyatomic ions the atoms within a unit cell divided by the unit cell

coordination number of an atom is volume.

determined by simply counting the other

atoms to which it is bonded.  In FCC structure, the APF is 0.74, which is the

 For FCC, the coordination number is 12. maximum packing possible for spheres all having
the same diameter.
 Metals have relatively large APFs to maximize
the shielding provided by the free electron cloud.
Coordination number
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures

 Refer to the following link for further

understanding about FCC crystal
structure and follow the videos in
the link thread …:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=GSPVC34ijIA
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures

BCC Crystal Structure:

 The BCC is another common metallic crystal

structure.
 It has a cubic unit cell with atoms located
at all eight corners and a single atom at the cube
center.
 The atoms represented by hard-sphere and
reduced-sphere models, respectively shown in
Figure 3.2a & b.
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures

 Center and corner atoms touch one another along cube diagonals,

and unit cell length a and atomic radius R are related through;

 Refer to the following link for

further understanding about
BCC crystal structure and follow

Figure 3.2 For the body-centered cubic crystal structure, (a) a hard-sphere unit cell the videos in the link thread …:
representation, (b) a reduced-sphere unit cell, and (c) an aggregate of many atoms. https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=_9RnbGqtkd4
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures

 The number of atoms per BCC unit cell is;  It is also possible to have a unit cell that consists
of atoms situated only at the corners of a cube.
• This is called the simple cubic (SC) crystal
structure; hard-sphere and reduced-sphere
 The coordination number for the BCC models as shown in Figure 3.3a & b.
crystal structure is 8.  None of the metallic elements have the simple
 The coordination number is less for cubic crystal structure because of its relatively
BCC than for FCC. low APF.
 The atomic packing factor is also lower  The only simple-cubic element is polonium,
for BCC, which is 0.68. which is considered to be a metalloid.
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures
HCP Crystal Structure:
What is hexagonal close-packed crystal structure?

 Not all metals have unit cells with cubic

symmetry.
 The final common metallic crystal structure is
hexagonal.
 A reduced-sphere unit cell for HCP, Figure 3.4a shows.
 The number of atoms per unit cell for the HCP Figure a: hexagonal close-packed unit cell.

crystal structure is, N;  Refer to see about HCP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OhQv5gsoSQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuclTFbINq4
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures
 The value of N for HCP is found, What is the real shape of HCP unit cell?

 Thus, in HCP 6 atoms are assigned to

each unit cell.
 The coordination number of HCP is 12.
 The APF for HCP is 0.74.
 The coordination number and APF of FCC Figure 3.4 For the hexagonal close-packed crystal
structure, (a) a reduced-sphere unit cell (a and c
& HCP are the same. represent the short and long edge lengths, respectively),
and (b) an aggregate of many atoms.
 The HCP metals include cadmium, Mg, Ti,
• What is c in terms of the radius R?
and Zn. Some of these listed in Table 3.1. • Show the APF of HCP is 0.74.
 Crystal Structures
Metallic Crystal Structures

Table 3.1: Atomic radii and crystal structure for 16 metals.

Figure: common metallic

crystal structures.
 Crystal Structures
Density Calculations
What is density?
Density is mass of a unit volume of a material Example: Copper has an atomic radius of
substance. 0.128nm with FCC crystal structure and an

Theoretical density for metals: atomic weight of 63.5g/mol. Determine its

theoretical density and compare the answer
with its measured density, 8.94 g/cm3.
where,
n = number of atoms associated with each unit cell
A = atomic weight
VC = volume of the unit cell
NA = Avogadro’s number