Experimental classes of metallic materials challenges in identifying steel components

Todays common accessibility to You Tube videos, Power Point presentations, slide shares, reports, social networks and all kind of information freely available on the internet, leaves teaching staff under a continuous pressure to innovate in their experimental classes. Keep students motivated and strongly enrolled in classes is a very demanding task, pushing professors for continuous creativity in terms of experimental works. In the course of Metallic Materials, of the Integrated Masters Course in Mechanical Engineering of Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto, practical classes are structured around an experimental work where students have the opportunity to design heat treatments of a given steel or identifying a steel component, and use all the necessary equipment to predict and characterize the effect of the heat treatment on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the steel. This experimental work, although very demanding, is extremely appreciated by the students, leading to great motivation for learning and an uncommon enrolment that is reflected on the excellent practical final grades. This paper presents the methodology adopted and the final grades obtained in the last five years, and finally presents a case study of identification of a steel rod used on the manufacture of a bicycle seatpost.