Materials and Metallurgical Engineering. — Specialization in materials within the department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering was the first of the present materials-oriented curriculums in the country to receive national accreditation (1957). Paralleling the evolution in the study of metals has been a change in the emphasis of metallurgical engineering activities. The extraction of metals from ores and the industrial chemistry of metal refining after World War II gave way to emphasis on the modification and control of properties through structural changes. This draws heavily on physics as well as chemistry and has related metallurgy to polymers and ceramics. Although emphasis continues in the metallurgical area, now there is concern for the coordination of the mechanical, electrical, thermal, and chemical behavior of all materials to their structures.
The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey Supplement, Page 133.
