Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Middle East Technical University

About the Program

The Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering is concerned with the generation and application of knowledge on engineering materials. It comprises such aspects as the extraction and refining processes, synthesis and processing of materials, factors affecting the internal structure of solids, methods of altering the structure and properties of materials and factors affecting the materials behavior in service. Materials are crucial in all other fields of engineering, since innovations in materials often lead to improvements in design or sometimes to the emergence of brand new products. In short, most fields of work or study have a bit of metallurgy and materials in them. Materials of concern are metals and alloys, ceramics, glasses, polymers and their composites. The undergraduate curriculum comprises a core program that emphasizes principles basic to all these classes of materials. It builds upon courses on physics, chemistry and certain aspects of solid mechanics with a series of courses on internal structure of solids covering both chemical and physical aspects and structure-property relations. From the fifth semester on, the core curriculum addresses to career opportunities in metallurgical and materials engineering. These include the metal industries, ceramic industries and other small scale industries that normally deal with a variety of materials. Iron and steel plants, non-ferrous industries, rolling mills, foundries, heat treatment shops, glass industry, structural ceramics and electronic-magnetic ceramic industries, aerospace and their related small scale industries are only a few examples for the employment opportunities.