A material property is an

intensive property Physical or chemical properties of materials and systems can often be categorized as being either intensive or extensive, according to how the property changes when the size (or extent) of the system changes. The terms "intensive and extensive ...

of a

material A material is a matter, substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an Physical object, object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical property, physical ...

, i.e., a

physical property A physical property is any property of a physical system that is measurable. The changes in the physical properties of a system can be used to describe its changes between momentary states. A quantifiable physical property is called ''physical ...

chemical property A chemical property is any of a material's properties that becomes evident during, or after, a chemical reaction; that is, any attribute that can be established only by changing a substance's chemical identity.William L. Masterton, Cecile N. Hur ...

that does not depend on the amount of the material. These quantitative properties may be used as a

metric Metric or metrical may refer to: Measuring * Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement * An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement Mathematics ...

by which the benefits of one material versus another can be compared, thereby aiding in

materials selection Material selection is a step in the process of designing any physical object. In the context of product design, the main goal of material selection is to minimize cost while meeting product performance goals. Systematic selection of the best materi ...

. A property having a fixed value for a given material or substance is called material constant or constant of matter. (Material constants should not be confused with

physical constant A physical constant, sometimes fundamental physical constant or universal constant, is a physical quantity that cannot be explained by a theory and therefore must be measured experimentally. It is distinct from a mathematical constant, which has a ...

s, that have a universal character.) A material property may also be a function of one or more

independent variable A variable is considered dependent if it depends on (or is hypothesized to depend on) an independent variable. Dependent variables are studied under the supposition or demand that they depend, by some law or rule (e.g., by a mathematical function ...

s, 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 Anisotropy () is the structural property of non-uniformity in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. An anisotropic object or pattern has properties that differ according to direction of measurement. For example, many materials exhibit ve ...

. Materials properties that relate to different physical phenomena often behave linearly (or approximately so) in a given operating range . Modeling them as linear functions can significantly simplify the differential

constitutive equation In physics and engineering, a constitutive equation or constitutive relation is a relation between two or more physical quantities (especially kinetic quantities as related to kinematic quantities) that is specific to a material or substance o ...

s that are used to describe the property. Equations describing relevant materials properties are often used to predict the attributes of a system. The properties are measured by standardized

test method A test method is a method for a test in science or engineering, such as a physical test, chemical test, or statistical test. It is a specified procedure that produces a test result. To ensure accurate and relevant results, a test method should b ...

s. Many such methods have been documented by their respective user communities and published through the Internet; see

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

Acoustical properties

* Acoustical absorption *

Speed of sound The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elasticity (solid mechanics), elastic medium. More simply, the speed of sound is how fast vibrations travel. At , the speed of sound in a ...

Sound reflection Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an Interface (matter), interface between two different medium (optics), media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated. Common examples include the reflection o ...

*Sound transfer *Third order elasticity ( Acoustoelastic effect)

Atomic properties

Atomic mass Atomic mass ( or ) is the mass of a single atom. The atomic mass mostly comes from the combined mass of the protons and neutrons in the nucleus, with minor contributions from the electrons and nuclear binding energy. The atomic mass of atoms, ...

: (applies to each element) the average mass of the atoms of an element, in daltons (Da), a.k.a. atomic mass units (amu). *

Atomic number The atomic number or nuclear charge number (symbol ''Z'') of a chemical element is the charge number of its atomic nucleus. For ordinary nuclei composed of protons and neutrons, this is equal to the proton number (''n''p) or the number of pro ...

: (applies to individual atoms or pure elements) the number of protons in each nucleus *

Relative atomic mass Relative atomic mass (symbol: ''A''; sometimes abbreviated RAM or r.a.m.), also known by the deprecated synonym atomic weight, is a dimensionless physical quantity defined as the ratio of the average mass of atoms of a chemical element in a gi ...

, a.k.a. atomic weight: (applies to individual

isotope Isotopes are distinct nuclear species (or ''nuclides'') of the same chemical element. They have the same atomic number (number of protons in their Atomic nucleus, nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemica ...

s or specific mixtures of isotopes of a given element) (no units) *

Standard atomic weight The standard atomic weight of a chemical element (symbol ''A''r°(E) for element "E") is the weighted arithmetic mean of the relative isotopic masses of all isotopes of that element weighted by each isotope's abundance on Earth. For example, ...

: the average relative atomic mass of a typical sample of the element (no units)

Chemical properties

* Corrosion resistance * Hygroscopy * pH * Reactivity * Specific internal surface area *

Surface energy In surface science, surface energy (also interfacial free energy or surface free energy) quantifies the disruption of intermolecular bonds that occurs when a surface is created. In solid-state physics, surfaces must be intrinsically less energe ...

Surface tension Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension (physics), tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects (e.g. Ge ...

Electrical properties

Capacitance Capacitance is the ability of an object to store electric charge. It is measured by the change in charge in response to a difference in electric potential, expressed as the ratio of those quantities. Commonly recognized are two closely related ...

Dielectric constant The relative permittivity (in older texts, dielectric constant) is the permittivity of a material expressed as a ratio with the electric permittivity of a vacuum. A dielectric is an insulating material, and the dielectric constant of an insul ...

* Dielectric strength *

Electrical resistivity and conductivity Electrical resistivity (also called volume resistivity or specific electrical resistance) is a fundamental specific property of a material that measures its electrical resistance or how strongly it resists electric current. A low resistivity in ...

Electric susceptibility In electricity (electromagnetism), the electric susceptibility (\chi_; Latin: ''susceptibilis'' "receptive") is a dimensionless proportionality constant that indicates the degree of polarization of a dielectric material in response to an applie ...

* Electrocaloric coefficient * Electrostriction *Magnetoelectric polarizability * Nernst coefficient (thermoelectric effect) *

Permittivity In electromagnetism, the absolute permittivity, often simply called permittivity and denoted by the Greek letter (epsilon), is a measure of the electric polarizability of a dielectric material. A material with high permittivity polarizes more ...

Piezoelectric Piezoelectricity (, ) is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in response to applied stress (mechanics), mechanical s ...

constants * Pyroelectricity *

Seebeck coefficient The Seebeck coefficient (also known as thermopower, thermoelectric power, and thermoelectric sensitivity) of a material is a measure of the magnitude of an induced thermoelectric voltage in response to a temperature difference across that material ...

Magnetic properties

* Curie temperature *

Diamagnetism Diamagnetism is the property of materials that are repelled by a magnetic field; an applied magnetic field creates an induced magnetic field in them in the opposite direction, causing a repulsive force. In contrast, paramagnetic and ferromagnet ...

Hall coefficient The Hall effect is the production of a potential difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was d ...

Hysteresis Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of ...

Magnetostriction Magnetostriction is a property of magnetic materials that causes them to change their shape or dimensions during the process of magnetization. The variation of materials' magnetization due to the applied magnetic field changes the magnetostrictive ...

* Magnetocaloric coefficient * Magnetothermoelectric power ( magneto-Seebeck effect coefficient) * Magnetoresistance * Maximum energy product * Permeability * Piezomagnetism * Pyromagnetic coefficient * Spin Hall effect

Manufacturing properties

* Castability: How easily a high-quality casting can be obtained from the material *

Machinability rating Machinability is the ease with which a metal can be cut (machining, machined) permitting the removal of the material with a satisfactory surface finish, finish at low cost.Degarmo, p. 542. Materials with good machinability (free-machining material ...

*Machining

speeds and feeds The phrase speeds and feeds or feeds and speeds refers to two separate parameters in machine tool practice, cutting speed and feed rate. They are often considered as a pair because of their combined effect on the cutting process. Each, however, ...

Mechanical properties

Brittleness A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress (physics), stress, it fractures with little elastic deformation and without significant plastic deformation. Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of h ...

: Ability of a material to break or shatter without significant deformation when under stress; opposite of plasticity, examples: glass, concrete, cast iron, ceramics etc. *

Bulk modulus The bulk modulus (K or B or k) of a substance is a measure of the resistance of a substance to bulk compression. It is defined as the ratio of the infinitesimal pressure increase to the resulting ''relative'' decrease of the volume. Other mo ...

: Ratio of pressure to volumetric compression (GPa) or ratio of the infinitesimal pressure increase to the resulting relative decrease of the volume *

Coefficient of restitution In physics, the coefficient of restitution (COR, also denoted by ''e''), can be thought of as a measure of the elasticity of a collision between two bodies. It is a dimensionless parameter defined as the ratio of the relative velocity of sepa ...

: The ratio of the final to initial relative velocity between two objects after they collide. Range: 0–1, 1 for perfectly elastic collision. *

Compressive strength In mechanics, compressive strength (or compression strength) is the capacity of a material or Structural system, structure to withstand Structural load, loads tending to reduce size (Compression (physics), compression). It is opposed to ''tensil ...

: Maximum stress a material can withstand before compressive failure (MPa) * Creep: The slow and gradual deformation of an object with respect to time. If the s in a material exceeds the yield point, the strain caused in the material by the application of load does not disappear totally on the removal of load. The plastic deformation caused to the material is known as creep. At high temperatures, the strain due to creep is quite appreciable. *

Density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the ratio of a substance's mass to its volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' (or ''d'') can also be u ...

: Mass per unit volume (kg/m^3) *

Ductility Ductility refers to the ability of a material to sustain significant plastic Deformation (engineering), deformation before fracture. Plastic deformation is the permanent distortion of a material under applied stress, as opposed to elastic def ...

: Ability of a material to deform under tensile load (% elongation). It is the property of a material by which it can be drawn into wires under the action of tensile force. A ductile material must have a high degree of plasticity and strength so that large deformations can take place without failure or rupture of the material. In ductile extension, a material that exhibits a certain amount of elasticity along with a high degree of plasticity. *

Durability Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. There are several measures of durability in us ...

: Ability to withstand wear, pressure, or damage; hard-wearing * 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 The fatigue limit or endurance limit is the stress (mechanics), stress level below which an infinite number of loading cycles can be applied to a material without causing fatigue (material), fatigue failure. Some metals such as ferrous alloys and ...

: Maximum stress a material can withstand under repeated loading (MPa) * Flexural modulus *

Flexural strength Flexural strength, also known as modulus of rupture, or bend strength, or transverse rupture strength is a material property, defined as the Stress (mechanics), stress in a material just before it Yield (engineering), yields in a flexure test. T ...

: Maximum bending stress a material can withstand before failure (MPa) *

Fracture toughness In materials science, fracture toughness is the critical stress intensity factor of a sharp Fracture, crack where propagation of the crack suddenly becomes rapid and unlimited. It is a material property that quantifies its ability to resist crac ...

: Ability of a material containing a crack to resist fracture (J/m^2) * Friction coefficient: The amount of force normal to surface which converts to force resisting relative movement of contacting surfaces between material pairs *

Hardness In materials science, hardness (antonym: softness) is a measure of the resistance to plastic deformation, such as an indentation (over an area) or a scratch (linear), induced mechanically either by Pressing (metalworking), pressing or abrasion ...

: Ability to withstand surface indentation and scratching (e.g. Brinell hardness number) *

Malleability Ductility refers to the ability of a material to sustain significant plastic Deformation (engineering), deformation before fracture. Plastic deformation is the permanent distortion of a material under applied stress, as opposed to elastic def ...

: Ability of the material to be flattened into thin sheets under applications of heavy compressive forces without cracking by hot or cold working means.This property of a material allows it to expand in all directions without rupture. *

Mass diffusivity Diffusivity, mass diffusivity or diffusion coefficient is usually written as the proportionality constant between the molar flux due to molecular diffusion and the negative value of the gradient in the concentration of the species. More accurate ...

: Ability of one substance to diffuse through another * Plasticity: Ability of a material to undergo irreversible or permanent deformations without breaking or rupturing; opposite of brittleness *

Poisson's ratio In materials science and solid mechanics, Poisson's ratio (symbol: ( nu)) is a measure of the Poisson effect, the deformation (expansion or contraction) of a material in directions perpendicular to the specific direction of loading. The value ...

: 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 In materials science, shear modulus or modulus of rigidity, denoted by ''G'', or sometimes ''S'' or ''μ'', is a measure of the Elasticity (physics), elastic shear stiffness of a material and is defined as the ratio of shear stress to the shear s ...

: Ratio of

shear stress Shear stress (often denoted by , Greek alphabet, Greek: tau) is the component of stress (physics), stress coplanar with a material cross section. It arises from the shear force, the component of force vector parallel to the material cross secti ...

to shear strain (MPa) * Shear strength: Maximum shear stress a material can withstand * Slip: A tendency of a material's particles to undergo plastic deformation due to a dislocation motion within the material. Common in Crystals. * Specific modulus: Modulus per unit volume (MPa/m^3) *

Specific strength The specific strength is a material's (or muscle's) strength (force per unit area at failure) divided by its density. It is also known as the strength-to-weight ratio or strength/weight ratio or strength-to-mass ratio. In fiber or textile applic ...

: Strength per unit density (Nm/kg) *

Specific weight Specific may refer to: * Specificity (disambiguation) * Specific, a cure or therapy for a specific illness Law * Specific deterrence, focussed on an individual * Specific finding, intermediate verdict used by a jury in determining the fin ...

: Weight per unit volume (N/m^3) *

Surface roughness Surface roughness or simply roughness is the quality of a surface of not being smooth and it is hence linked to human ( haptic) perception of the surface texture. From a mathematical perspective it is related to the spatial variability structure ...

: The deviations in the direction of the normal vector of a real surface from its ideal form *

Tensile strength Ultimate tensile strength (also called UTS, tensile strength, TS, ultimate strength or F_\text in notation) is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials, the ultimate ...

: Maximum tensile stress of a material can withstand before failure (MPa) *

Toughness In materials science and metallurgy, toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing.Viscosity Viscosity is a measure of a fluid's rate-dependent drag (physics), resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighboring portions relative to one another. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of ''thickness''; for e ...

: A fluid's resistance to gradual deformation by tensile or shear stress; thickness *

Yield strength In materials science and engineering, the yield point is the point on a stress–strain curve that indicates the limit of elastic behavior and the beginning of plastic behavior. Below the yield point, a material will deform elastically and w ...

: The stress at which a material starts to yield plastically (MPa) *

Young's modulus Young's modulus (or the Young modulus) is a mechanical property of solid materials that measures the tensile or compressive stiffness when the force is applied lengthwise. It is the modulus of elasticity for tension or axial compression. Youn ...

: Ratio of linear stress to linear strain (MPa) (influences the stiffness and flexibility of an ''object'')

Optical properties

Absorbance Absorbance is defined as "the logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmitted radiant power through a sample (excluding the effects on cell walls)". Alternatively, for samples which scatter light, absorbance may be defined as "the negative log ...

: How strongly a chemical attenuates light *

Birefringence Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefrin ...

Color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

* Electro-optic effect *

Luminosity Luminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic energy per unit time, and is synonymous with the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object. In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electroma ...

Optical activity Optical rotation, also known as polarization rotation or circular birefringence, is the rotation of the orientation of the plane of polarization about the optical axis of linearly polarized light as it travels through certain materials. Circul ...

Photoelasticity In materials science, photoelasticity describes changes in the optical properties of a material under mechanical deformation. It is a property of all dielectric media and is often used to experimentally determine the stress distribution in a ...

Photosensitivity Photosensitivity is the amount to which an object reacts upon receiving photons, especially visible light. In medicine, the term is principally used for abnormal reactions of the skin, and two types are distinguished, photoallergy and phototoxicit ...

Reflectivity The reflectance of the surface of a material is its effectiveness in Reflection (physics), reflecting radiant energy. It is the fraction of incident electromagnetic power that is reflected at the boundary. Reflectance is a component of the respon ...

Refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is the ratio of the apparent speed of light in the air or vacuum to the speed in the medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or refrac ...

Scattering In physics, scattering is a wide range of physical processes where moving particles or radiation of some form, such as light or sound, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by localized non-uniformities (including particles and radiat ...

Transmittance Electromagnetic radiation can be affected in several ways by the medium in which it propagates. It can be Scattering, scattered, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbed, and Fresnel equations, reflected and refracted at discontinui ...

Radiological properties

Attenuation coefficient The linear attenuation coefficient, attenuation coefficient, or narrow-beam attenuation coefficient characterizes how easily a volume of material can be penetrated by a beam of light, sound, particles, or other energy or matter. A coefficient val ...

s *

Half-life Half-life is a mathematical and scientific description of exponential or gradual decay. Half-life, half life or halflife may also refer to: Film * Half-Life (film), ''Half-Life'' (film), a 2008 independent film by Jennifer Phang * ''Half Life: ...

Neutron cross section In nuclear physics, the concept of a neutron cross section is used to express the likelihood of interaction between an incident neutron and a target nucleus. The neutron cross section σ can be defined as the area in cm2 for which the number of ...

Specific activity Specific activity (symbol ''a'') is the activity per unit mass of a radionuclide and is a physical property of that radionuclide. It is usually given in units of becquerel per kilogram (Bq/kg), but another commonly used unit of specific activi ...

Thermal properties

* Phase diagram *

Boiling point The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid equals the pressure surrounding the liquid and the liquid changes into a vapor. The boiling point of a liquid varies depending upon the surrounding envi ...

Coefficient of thermal expansion Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to increase in length, area, or volume, changing its size and density, in response to an increase in temperature (usually excluding phase transitions). Substances usually contract with decreasing temp ...

*Critical temperature *Curie point *Ductile-to-brittle transition temperature *Emissivity *Eutectic point *Flammability *Flash point *Glass transition temperature *Heat of vaporization *Inversion temperature *Melting point *Thermal conductivity *Thermal diffusivity *Thermal expansion *Triple point *Vapor pressure *Specific heat capacity

References

{{Reflist Chemical properties Materials science Physical quantities