2021

Professor when you took the course: Prof. Nithyanand Prabhu

Motivation for the course: To familiarize students with various types of phase transformations and explain the science that governs these processes in terms of thermodynamics, kinetics and interfaces

Course Content: This particular course is an 8 credit course and is tough to be honest. It requires continuous effort from the students side in order to score a good grade in this course. As far as the evaluation is concerned, the professor took a midsem of 30%, endsem of 50% and rest of the 20% was distributed among 4 quizzes and 5 assignments. the questions asked involved performing numerical calculations, doing derivations and explaining certain concepts covered in class. It is important to stay regular in this course.

The course is broadly divided into three parts – Thermodynamics, Kinetics and Interfaces.The Thermodynamics part covers the construction of phase diagrams using free energy curves, chemical potential concept, Gibbs’ phase rule and basic mathematical formulations in phase transformations. The Kinetics part starts with diffusion theory in terms of Fick’s first and second laws and then uses this theory to explain the role of diffusion in phase transformations. Additionally, it also talks about diffusion-less transformations. Lastly, the interfaces part describes how boundaries play a role in phase transformations. Also, towards the end of the course, the professor explains certain specific phase transformations using the above concepts covered earlier

Pre requisites: No prerequisites required. However, brushing up the Gibbs Free Energy diagrams and phase diagrams covered in the Thermodynamics course might be helpful

Feedback on Lectures and Teaching: Prof. Prabhu is highly enthusiastic about this course and puts in his heart and soul to ensure that the students are able to understand, follow and comprehend the slides during the lecture. He is willing to answer even the silliest of doubts asked by students and can explain a particular concept over and over again until the students completely understand it. He does expect active participation from the students during classes as well, so it is extremely useful to attend classes regularly and take notes.

Feedback on evaluation process: The evaluation done by the Professor was fair in my opinion. He gave a large weightage to the endsem keeping the online semester in mind, did not allot any FRs. Just gave one FF grade. The quizzes and assignments were apt and helped in understanding the course content better. The midsem and endsem examinations were also made well, taking into consideration that all students will get sufficient time to write the entire paper. Additionally, the TAs were also extremely helpful and responded pretty quickly to any doubt/crib that I had.

Difficulty level: 4

How is the Grading?: Grading is moderate with about 30% of the class being 9 or above. No FRs were given this time perhaps owing to the online semester. However, about 10% students got an FR the previous year when instructions were held in an offline mode.

Any other comments: Since this was the first online semester, it was a bit challenging to follow instructions initially, however after 2-3 weeks we got comfortable with this mode of delivery and in fact, in some cases especially for this course, it was easier to understand diagrams on the computer screen rather than having to watch them sitting in a classroom on a big screen because they contained many small and important details.

Reference Textbooks: The Professor follows the book “Phase Transformations in Metals and Alloys” by Porter and Easterling as a textbook for this course. So, reading this would be extremely useful and not a waste of time for sure. Also, it is very important to attend classes and take notes diligently since many questions are asked.

Thanks to Vivek Pendharkar for this course review!

2017

Professor for autumn semester: Prof. N Prabhu

Motivation behind the course: To introduce governing sciences behind the phase transformations that take place in solids and otherwise. Also to introduce, in short, various typical phase transformations.

Prerequisites: None

Course content: This is an 8-credit course and is tough to be frank. The instructor had taken 2 quizzes of 10 percent weightage each, a midsem of 30 percent and endsem of 50 percent. Quizzes and the midsem had numericals and short derivations asked along with graphical interpretations. The endsem was divided into 2 parts, one had multiple choice questions and the second part was like other tests taken previously in the semester.

The instructor teaches the course very well and hence it is recommended that every student tries to attend each and every lecture and TAKE GOOD NOTES. The course gives good understanding about the various phenomena like diffusion, thermodynamics, surface chemistry, etc. that work while a transformation is in progress. After building up on the basic theories, the course teaches us nuances of some typical phases and phase transformations.

Difficulty level: On a scale of 5, course difficulty would be 4

Grading statistics: Grading was difficult. There were very few AAs, ABs and BBs awarded as compared to other courses. Obviously the distribution was not normal and was skewed towards the lower end. Not a lot of people were failed in the course though.

Study Material and References: Notes for the course would make up for most of the study material as the instructor makes the students write diligent notes like a school teacher would. That helps as the exam questions are most often than not somewhere related to the content in the notes. Apart from the class notes, a book on phase transformations by Porter and Easterling which is available for free online is followed as the textbook and covers the course very well. The book has solved exercises which help a lot in solving numericals. Some questions in quizzes are taken from these examples.

Thanks to Karan Kothadiya for writing this course review

2015

Professor when you took the course: Prof. Prabhu

Motivation behind the course: This course is required for the understanding of the phase transformations in solids.

Course Content: Mechanism involved in various phase transformations in metals and alloy systems.

It explains the construction and the significance of phase diagram. Gives details of diffusional and diffusionless transformations in solids. Includes nucleation, growth and precipitation concepts.

Topics covered: Thermodynamics and Binary phase diagram, Diffusion, Crystal Interfaces, Solidification, Diffusion and Diffusion less transformations

Pre-requisites: None

Feedback on lectures: Lectures are good and useful. Nothing is uploaded on moodle. Content is taken from ‘Phase Transformations in Metals and Alloys’- Porter and Easterling. TA takes manual attendance in the class.

Pre-midsem part covers the background part necessary for understanding phase transformations. Post-midsem part deals with mechanisms of specific transformations. There can be few guest lectures which may cover some extra topics. No slides/notes are shared on moodle. So, you have to take down notes during class. Manual attendance is taken by TA`s. No assignments are given. There are 6 to 8 tutorials, which are only for self-evaluation purpose. They do not carry any marks.

Assignments: No extra assignments.

Exams: More focus is given to derivations and proofs and less on numericals. First quiz and Midsem might be easier and scoring , but second quiz is tough (there are some objective questions with negative marking). Endsem is moderately difficult.

Difficulty level: 3.5/5

How is the grading?: Prof. follows normal distribution for grading.

Study Material and References: Best study material is what is done in class/lecture notes. Previous year’s papers are useful.

Reference books: Phase Transformations in Metals and Alloys- Porter and Easterling