List of materials properties
A material's property is an intensive, often quantitative, property of some material. Quantitative properties may be used as a metric by which the benefits of one material versus another can be assessed, thereby aiding in materials selection.
A property may be a constant or may be a function of one or more independent variables, such as temperature. Materials properties often vary to some degree according to the direction in the material in which they are measured, a condition referred to as anisotropy. Materials properties that relate to different physical phenomena often behave linearly (or approximately so) in a given operating range. Modeling them as linear can significantly simplify the differential constitutive equations that the property describes.
Some materials properties are used in relevant equations to predict 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 are most reliably measured by standardized test methods. Many such test methods have been documented by their respective user communities and published through ASTM International.
Acoustical properties
Atomic properties
- Atomic mass
- Atomic number: applies to pure elements only
- Atomic weight: applies to individual isotopes or specific mixtures of isotopes of a given element.
Chemical properties
- Corrosion resistance
- Hygroscopy
- pH
- Reactivity
- Specific internal surface area
- Surface energy
- Surface tension
Electrical properties
- Dielectric constant
- Dielectric strength
- Electrical conductivity
- Permittivity
- Piezoelectric constants
- Seebeck coefficient
Environmental properties
Magnetic properties
Manufacturing properties
- Castability
- Extruding temperature and pressure
- Hardness
- Machinability rating
- Machining speeds and feeds
Mechanical properties
- Brittleness: Ability of a material to break or shatter without significant deformation when under stress; opposite of plasticity
- Bulk modulus: Ratio of pressure to volumetric compression (GPa)
- Coefficient of friction (also depends on surface finish)
- Coefficient of restitution
- Compressive strength: Maximum stress a material can withstand before compressive failure (MPa)
- Creep: The slow and gradual deformation of an object with respect to time
- Elasticity: Ability of a body to resist a distorting influence or stress and to return to its original size and shape when the stress is removed
- Fatigue limit: Maximum stress a material can withstand under repeated loading (MPa)
- Flexibility: Ability of an object to bend or deform in response to an applied force; pliability; complementary to stiffness
- Flexural modulus
- Flexural strength
- Fracture toughness: Energy absorbed by unit area before the fracture of material (J/m^2)
- Hardness: Ability to withstand surface indentation and scratching (e.g. Brinnell hardness number)
- Plasticity: Ability of a material to undergo irreversible or permanent deformations without breaking or rupturing; opposite of brittleness
- Ductility: Ability of a material to deform under tensile load (% elongation)
- Malleability: Ability to deform under compressive stress without developing defects
- Poisson's ratio: Ratio of lateral strain to axial strain (no units)
- Resilience: Ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically (MPa); combination of strength and elasticity
- Shear modulus: Ratio of shear stress to shear strain (MPa)
- Shear strain: in the angle between two perpendicular lines in a plane
- Shear strength: Maximum shear stress a material can withstand
- Specific modulus: Modulus per unit volume (MPa/ m^3)
- Specific strength: Strength per unit density (Nm/kg)
- Specific weight: Weight per unit volume (N/m^3)
- Stiffness: Ability of an object resists deformation in response to an applied force; rigidity; complementary to flexibility
- Surface roughness
- Tensile strength: Maximum tensile stress a material can withstand before failure (MPa)
- Toughness: Ability of a material to absorb energy (or withstand shock) and plastically deform without fracturing (or rupturing); a material's resistance to fracture when stressed; combination of strength and plasticity
- Viscosity: A fluid's resistance to gradual deformation by shear stress or tensile stress; thickness
- Yield strength: The stress at which a material starts to yield (MPa)
- Young's modulus: Ratio of linear stress to linear strain (MPa)
Optical properties
- Absorbance
- Birefringence
- Color
- Luminosity
- Photosensitivity
- Reflectivity
- Refractive index
- Scattering
- Transmittance
Radiological properties
Thermal properties
- Binary phase diagram
- Boiling point
- Coefficient of thermal expansion
- Critical temperature
- Curie point
- Emissivity
- Eutectic point
- Flammability
- Flash point
- Glass transition temperature
- Heat of vaporization
- Inversion temperature
- Melting point
- Phase diagram
- Pyrophoricity
- Specific heat
- Thermal conductivity
- Thermal diffusivity
- Thermal expansion
- Triple point
- Vapor pressure