List of materials properties - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Material

Material is anything made of matter, constituted of one or more substances. Wood, cement, hydrogen, air and water are all examples of materials. Sometimes the term "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substances or components with certain physical properties that are used as inputs to...

property is an intensive, often quantitative property

Quantitative property

A quantitative property is one that exists in a range of magnitudes, and can therefore be measured with a number. Measurements of any particular quantitative property are expressed as a specific quantity, referred to as a unit, multiplied by a number. Examples of physical quantities are distance,...

of a material, usually with a unit that may be used as a metric

Metric (mathematics)

In mathematics, a metric or distance function is a function which defines a distance between elements of a set. A set with a metric is called a metric space. A metric induces a topology on a set but not all topologies can be generated by a metric...

of value to compare the benefits of one material versus another to aid in materials selection.

A material property may be a constant

Physical constant

A physical constant is a physical quantity that is generally believed to be both universal in nature and constant in time. It can be contrasted with a mathematical constant, which is a fixed numerical value but does not directly involve any physical measurement.There are many physical constants in...

or may be a function of one or more independent variables, such as temperature. Material's properties often vary to some degree according to the direction in the material in which they are measured; a condition referred to as anisotropy

Anisotropy

Anisotropy is the property of being directionally dependent, as opposed to isotropy, which implies identical properties in all directions. It can be defined as a difference, when measured along different axes, in a material's physical or mechanical properties An example of anisotropy is the light...

. Materials properties that relate two different physical phenomena often behave linearly (or approximately so) in a given operating range, and may then be modeled as a constant for that range. This linearization can significantly simplify the differential constitutive equation

Constitutive equation

In physics, a constitutive equation is a relation between two physical quantities that is specific to a material or substance, and approximates the response of that material to external forces...

s that the property describes.

Some material's properties are used in relevant equations to determine the attributes of a system a priori. For example, if a material of a known specific heat gains or loses a known amount of heat, the temperature change of that material can be determined. Materials properties may be determined by standardized test method

Test method

A test method is a definitive procedure that produces a test result.A test can be considered as technical operation that consists of determination of one or more characteristics of a given product, process or service according to a specified procedure. Often a test is part of an experiment.The test...

s. Many such test methods have been documented by their respective user communities and published through ASTM International

ASTM International

ASTM International, known until 2001 as the American Society for Testing and Materials , is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, and services...

Atomic properties

Atomic mass
Atomic mass
The atomic mass is the mass of a specific isotope, most often expressed in unified atomic mass units. The atomic mass is the total mass of protons, neutrons and electrons in a single atom....
Atomic number
Atomic number
In chemistry and physics, the atomic number is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element...

- applies to pure elements only
Atomic weight
Atomic weight
Atomic weight is a dimensionless physical quantity, the ratio of the average mass of atoms of an element to 1/12 of the mass of an atom of carbon-12...

- applies to individual isotope
Isotope
Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation...

s or specific mixtures of isotopes of a given element.

Chemical properties

Corrosion
Corrosion
Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...

resistance
Hygroscopy
Hygroscopy
Hygroscopy is the ability of a substance to attract and hold water molecules from the surrounding environment. This is achieved through either absorption or adsorption with the absorbing or adsorbing material becoming physically 'changed,' somewhat, by an increase in volume, stickiness, or other...
pH
PH
In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...
Reactivity
Specific internal surface area
BET theory
BET theory aims to explain the physical adsorption of gas molecules on a solid surface and serves as the basis for an important analysis technique for the measurement of the specific surface area of a material...
Surface energy
Surface energy
Surface energy quantifies the disruption of intermolecular bonds that occur when a surface is created. In the physics of solids, surfaces must be intrinsically less energetically favorable than the bulk of a material, otherwise there would be a driving force for surfaces to be created, removing...
Surface tension
Surface tension
Surface tension is a property of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force. It is revealed, for example, in floating of some objects on the surface of water, even though they are denser than water, and in the ability of some insects to run on the water surface...

Electrical properties

Conductivity
Conductivity
Conductivity may refer to:*Electrical conductivity, a measure of a material's ability to conduct an electric current*Conductivity , also the specific conductance, is a measurement of the electrical conductance per unit distance in an electrolytic or aqueous solution*Ionic conductivity, a measure of...
Dielectric constant
Dielectric constant
The relative permittivity of a material under given conditions reflects the extent to which it concentrates electrostatic lines of flux. In technical terms, it is the ratio of the amount of electrical energy stored in a material by an applied voltage, relative to that stored in a vacuum...
Dielectric strength
Dielectric strength
In physics, the term dielectric strength has the following meanings:*Of an insulating material, the maximum electric field strength that it can withstand intrinsically without breaking down, i.e., without experiencing failure of its insulating properties....
Electrical conductivity
Permeability
Permeability (electromagnetism)
In electromagnetism, permeability is the measure of the ability of a material to support the formation of a magnetic field within itself. In other words, it is the degree of magnetization that a material obtains in response to an applied magnetic field. Magnetic permeability is typically...
Permittivity
Permittivity
In electromagnetism, absolute permittivity is the measure of the resistance that is encountered when forming an electric field in a medium. In other words, permittivity is a measure of how an electric field affects, and is affected by, a dielectric medium. The permittivity of a medium describes how...
Piezoelectric constants
Seebeck coefficient
Thermopower
The thermopower, or thermoelectric power of a material is a measure of the magnitude of an induced thermoelectric voltage in response to a temperature difference across that material...

Environmental properties

Embodied energy
Embodied energy
Embodied energy is defined as the sum of energy inputs that was used in the work to make any product, from the point of extraction and refining materials, bringing it to market, and disposal / re-purposing of it...
Embodied water
RoHS compliance

There are a variety of other properties to consider in an environmental impact assessment that effect the ecological or human environment that may be difficult to quantify (unlike most of the properties listed on this page) including pollution

Pollution

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...

(extraction, transportation, manufacture), scarcity

Scarcity

Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having humans who have unlimited wants and needs in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be...

/abundance

Abundance

Abundance may refer to:In science and technology:* Abundance , the opposite of scarcities* Abundance , growing food with plentiful resources that will not run out -- sunshine, CO2, and waste or brine water....

, habitat destruction

Habitat destruction

Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Habitat destruction by human activity mainly for the purpose of...

, renewability, recyclability

Recycling

Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

, wars fought over materials, labor exploitation, etc. These can be subjective, dependent on context, or inadequately measured.

Magnetic properties

Curie Point
Curie point
In physics and materials science, the Curie temperature , or Curie point, is the temperature at which a ferromagnetic or a ferrimagnetic material becomes paramagnetic on heating; the effect is reversible. A magnet will lose its magnetism if heated above the Curie temperature...
Diamagnetism
Diamagnetism
Diamagnetism is the property of an object which causes it to create a magnetic field in opposition to an externally applied magnetic field, thus causing a repulsive effect. Specifically, an external magnetic field alters the orbital velocity of electrons around their nuclei, thus changing the...
Hysteresis
Hysteresis
Hysteresis is the dependence of a system not just on its current environment but also on its past. This dependence arises because the system can be in more than one internal state. To predict its future evolution, either its internal state or its history must be known. If a given input alternately...
Permeability
Permeability (electromagnetism)
In electromagnetism, permeability is the measure of the ability of a material to support the formation of a magnetic field within itself. In other words, it is the degree of magnetization that a material obtains in response to an applied magnetic field. Magnetic permeability is typically...

Manufacturing properties

Castability
Castability
Castability is the ease of forming a casting. Castability can be thought of as how easy is it to cast a quality part. A very castable part design is easily developed, incurs minimal tooling costs, requires minimal energy, and has few rejections....
Extruding
Extrusion
Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile. A material is pushed or drawn through a die of the desired cross-section...

temperature and pressure
Hardness
Machinability rating
Machining speeds and feeds

Mechanical properties

Compressive strength
Compressive strength
Compressive strength is the capacity of a material or structure to withstand axially directed pushing forces. When the limit of compressive strength is reached, materials are crushed. Concrete can be made to have high compressive strength, e.g...
Density
Density
The mass density or density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ . In some cases , density is also defined as its weight per unit volume; although, this quantity is more properly called specific weight...
Ductility
Ductility
In materials science, ductility is a solid material's ability to deform under tensile stress; this is often characterized by the material's ability to be stretched into a wire. Malleability, a similar property, is a material's ability to deform under compressive stress; this is often characterized...
Fatigue limit
Fatigue limit
Fatigue limit, endurance limit, and fatigue strength are all expressions used to describe a property of materials: the amplitude of cyclic stress that can be applied to the material without causing fatigue failure. Ferrous alloys and titanium alloys have a distinct limit, an amplitude below which...
Flexural modulus
Flexural modulus
In mechanics, the flexural modulus is the ratio of stress to strain in flexural deformation, or the tendency for a material to bend. It is determined from the slope of a stress-strain curve produced by a flexural test , and uses units of force per area...
Flexural strength
Flexural strength
Flexural strength, also known as modulus of rupture, bend strength, or fracture strength, a mechanical parameter for brittle material, is defined as a material's ability to resist deformation under load...
Fracture toughness
Fracture toughness
In materials science, fracture toughness is a property which describes the ability of a material containing a crack to resist fracture, and is one of the most important properties of any material for virtually all design applications. The fracture toughness of a material is determined from the...
Hardness
Plasticity (physics)
Plasticity (physics)
In physics and materials science, plasticity describes the deformation of a material undergoing non-reversible changes of shape in response to applied forces. For example, a solid piece of metal being bent or pounded into a new shape displays plasticity as permanent changes occur within the...
Poisson's ratio
Poisson's ratio
Poisson's ratio , named after Siméon Poisson, is the ratio, when a sample object is stretched, of the contraction or transverse strain , to the extension or axial strain ....
Shear modulus
Shear strain
Shear strength
Shear strength
Shear strength in engineering is a term used to describe the strength of a material or component against the type of yield or structural failure where the material or component fails in shear. A shear load is a force that tends to produce a sliding failure on a material along a plane that is...
Softness
Softness
Softness may refer to:* The opposite of one of the many types of hardness.* A texture which is the opposite of roughness....
Specific modulus
Specific modulus
Specific modulus is a materials property consisting of the elastic modulus per mass density of a material. It is also known as the stiffness to weight ratio or specific stiffness. High specific modulus materials find wide application in aerospace applications where minimum structural weight is...
Specific weight
Specific weight
The specific weight is the weight per unit volume of a material. The symbol of specific weight is γ ....
Tensile strength
Tensile strength
Ultimate tensile strength , often shortened to tensile strength or ultimate strength, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before necking, which is when the specimen's cross-section starts to significantly contract...
Yield strength
Young's modulus
Young's modulus
Young's modulus is a measure of the stiffness of an elastic material and is a quantity used to characterize materials. It is defined as the ratio of the uniaxial stress over the uniaxial strain in the range of stress in which Hooke's Law holds. In solid mechanics, the slope of the stress-strain...

Optical properties

Absorptivity
Absorptivity
The term absorptivity has two meanings:*In chemistry, it usually refers to Molar absorptivity : the constant \epsilon used in the Beer-Lambert law, A=\epsilon c l, where A is the absorbance, c is the concentration of the solution, and l is the path length....
Color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
Luminosity
Luminosity
Luminosity is a measurement of brightness.-In photometry and color imaging:In photometry, luminosity is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to luminance, which is the density of luminous intensity in a given direction. The SI unit for luminance is candela per square metre.The luminosity function...
Photosensitivity
Photosensitivity
Photosensitivity is the amount to which an object reacts upon receiving photons, especially visible light.- Human medicine :Sensitivity of the skin to a light source can take various forms. People with particular skin types are more sensitive to sunburn...
Reflectivity
Reflectivity
In optics and photometry, reflectivity is the fraction of incident radiation reflected by a surface. In general it must be treated as a directional property that is a function of the reflected direction, the incident direction, and the incident wavelength...
Refractive index
Refractive index
In optics the refractive index or index of refraction of a substance or medium is a measure of the speed of light in that medium. It is expressed as a ratio of the speed of light in vacuum relative to that in the considered medium....
Scattering
Scattering
Scattering is a general physical process where some forms of radiation, such as light, sound, or moving particles, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by one or more localized non-uniformities in the medium through which they pass. In conventional use, this also includes deviation of...
Transmittance
Transmittance
In optics and spectroscopy, transmittance is the fraction of incident light at a specified wavelength that passes through a sample. A related term is absorptance, or absorption factor, which is the fraction of radiation absorbed by a sample at a specified wavelength...

Sensorial properties

Brightness
Brightness
Brightness is an attribute of visual perception in which a source appears to be radiating or reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception elicited by the luminance of a visual target...
Smell
Smell
Smell may refer to:* Olfaction, sense of smell, the ability of humans and other animals to perceive odors* Odor, the percept resultant from the sense of smell...
Softness
Softness
Softness may refer to:* The opposite of one of the many types of hardness.* A texture which is the opposite of roughness....
Warmth

Thermal properties

Autoignition temperature
Autoignition temperature
The autoignition temperature or kindling point of a substance is the lowest temperature at which it will spontaneously ignite in a normal atmosphere without an external source of ignition, such as a flame or spark. This temperature is required to supply the activation energy needed for combustion...
Binary phase diagram
Boiling point
Boiling point
The boiling point of an element or a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the environmental pressure surrounding the liquid....
Coefficient of thermal expansion
Critical temperature
Curie point
Curie point
In physics and materials science, the Curie temperature , or Curie point, is the temperature at which a ferromagnetic or a ferrimagnetic material becomes paramagnetic on heating; the effect is reversible. A magnet will lose its magnetism if heated above the Curie temperature...
Emissivity
Emissivity
The emissivity of a material is the relative ability of its surface to emit energy by radiation. It is the ratio of energy radiated by a particular material to energy radiated by a black body at the same temperature...
Eutectic point
Eutectic point
A eutectic system is a mixture of chemical compounds or elements that has a single chemical composition that solidifies at a lower temperature than any other composition. This composition is known as the eutectic composition and the temperature is known as the eutectic temperature...
Flammability
Flammability
Flammability is defined as how easily something will burn or ignite, causing fire or combustion. The degree of difficulty required to cause the combustion of a substance is quantified through fire testing. Internationally, a variety of test protocols exist to quantify flammability...
Flash point
Flash point
The flash point of a volatile material is the lowest temperature at which it can vaporize to form an ignitable mixture in air. Measuring a flash point requires an ignition source...
Glass transition temperature
Heat of fusion
Heat of vaporization
Inversion temperature
Inversion temperature
The inversion temperature in thermodynamics and cryogenics is the critical temperature below which a non-ideal gas that is expanded at constant enthalpy will experience a temperature decrease, and above which will experience a temperature increase...
Melting point
Melting point
The melting point of a solid is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depends on pressure and is usually specified at standard atmospheric pressure...
Phase diagram
Phase diagram
A phase diagram in physical chemistry, engineering, mineralogy, and materials science is a type of chart used to show conditions at which thermodynamically distinct phases can occur at equilibrium...
Pyrophoricity
Pyrophoricity
A pyrophoric substance is a substance that will ignite spontaneously in air. Examples are iron sulfide and many reactive metals including uranium, when powdered or sliced thin. Pyrophoric materials are often water-reactive as well and will ignite when they contact water or humid air...
Solidus
Solidus
Solidus may refer to:*Solidus , the "⁄" grammatical punctuation character, also used in mathematics*Slash a sign, "/" used as a punctuation mark and for various other purposes...
Specific heat
Thermal conductivity
Thermal conductivity
In physics, thermal conductivity, k, is the property of a material's ability to conduct heat. It appears primarily in Fourier's Law for heat conduction....
Thermal diffusivity
Thermal diffusivity
In heat transfer analysis, thermal diffusivity is the thermal conductivity divided by density and specific heat capacity at constant pressure. It has the SI unit of m²/s...
Thermal expansion
Thermal expansion
Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change in volume in response to a change in temperature.When a substance is heated, its particles begin moving more and thus usually maintain a greater average separation. Materials which contract with increasing temperature are rare; this effect is...
Seebeck coefficient
Thermopower
The thermopower, or thermoelectric power of a material is a measure of the magnitude of an induced thermoelectric voltage in response to a temperature difference across that material...
Triple point
Triple point
In thermodynamics, the triple point of a substance is the temperature and pressure at which the three phases of that substance coexist in thermodynamic equilibrium...
Vapor Pressure
Vapor pressure
Vapor pressure or equilibrium vapor pressure is the pressure of a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases in a closed system. All liquids have a tendency to evaporate, and some solids can sublimate into a gaseous form...
Vicat softening point
Vicat softening point
Vicat softening point or Vicat hardness is the determination of the softening point for materials that have no definite melting point, such as plastics. It is taken as the temperature at which the specimen is penetrated to a depth of 1 mm by a flat-ended needle with a 1 square mm circular or...