Pulling all the right strings
Curriculum Links
Understanding the 'Technological Knowledge' strand:
Technological Products
In this component, the focus is on understanding the physical nature of a technological outcome as viewed as a product, and therefore material understandings are key to this component.
Technological products are defined as material objects that result from technological practice, and as such have been designed by people to exist in order to fulfil an intended function. The key concepts underpinning the technological product component relate to the identification, description, use and development of materials with reference to how materials help make a product fit for the purpose for which it was designed.
The inherent qualities of a material are determined by its composition (the type and arrangements of particles that make up the material) and can be described as structural (conductive, ductile etc) or sensory (colour, texture etc) in nature. Together, these define the material's overall performance properties.
Material selection is based on matching the desired performance criteria of a technological product with the performance properties of the materials available to ensure the material selected will be adequate for use in the product. Material evaluation plays a critical role in material selection making decisions that can be justified in terms of the material not only being adequate, but be the optimal material for use when all factors are considered.
Material innovation refers to making available new performance properties through either transformation of materials to formulate a new material or through the use of existing materials in a new way. The contemporary field of material innovation is crossing many traditional disciplines and showing increasingly diverse and exciting possibilities for material performance properties, and therefore the types of functions that a technological product may have.
Reference
www.techlink.org.nz/curriculum-support/papers/knowledge/tech-products
Key concept: Forming, manipulating and/or transforming materials to enhance the fitness for purpose of a technological product.
Focus questions
- The Gisborne based company Pultron Composites is one of the world's leading makers of products using pultrusion technology.
Explain how composite materials are produced using pultrusion technology and what makes this technology so versatile. - Pultrusion products come in a range of standard profiles and sizes and, as the Pultron website states, can be used in a wide variety of contexts including: mining; recreation; water supply and sewerage; defence; electrical; marine; construction; agriculture and horticulture.
From the company website, list some of the applications of pultrusion products in each of these areas. Identify the required key attributes of the materials for each application (such as strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion/chemical resistance, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, electomagnetic transparency), explaining why they are critical in determining the choice of materials used.
