Written Test for PhD admission

Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IITM

Sample question paper

All questions are compulsory. Write only in the provided answer sheet and use the back of the answer
sheet for rough work. Return the question paper and answer sheet when you are done.

1) The energy of a covalent bond is typically

a) 5 meV b) 500 meV c) 5 eV d) 50 eV

2) Atomic radius _______________ as we move across the periodic table from left to right.

3) Gibb's phase rule (at constant pressure) can be written as ________________, where, P= number of
phases, F= degrees of freedom, C= number of components.

4) Energy balance equation is derived from ___________________law of thermodynamics.

5) An incompressible fluid maintains steady flow through a expansion of a channel with circular cross
section. At the narrower end, where the diameter is 2 cm, the fluid has a velocity of 8 m/s. What is the
expected velocity at the wider end of the channel where the diameter is 4 cm?

6) SI Unit for thermal conductivity is _________________________.

7) The condition for the differential df = P(x, y)dx +Q(x, y)dy to be exact is _______________

8) Graphene is the 2D form of carbon. A recently discovered 2D form of tin is called ____________.

9) The deflection of an electric charge by a magnetic field is called Lorentz law. In vector form, Lorentz

force can be written as F  _______________________

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10) The net electric flux through any closed surface is equal to times the net electric charge enclosed

within that surface. This is called _______________ .

11) The ring rolling process is used for

a) producing seamless tube
b) increasing the thickness of a ring
c) decreasing the thickness of a ring
d) producing large cylinder
21 0 0
12) The maximum shear stress available for the stress tensor 0 9 0  is ______________.
0 0 6 
13) With reference to the iron-carbon system, the crystal structure of martensite is _________________.
a) BCC b) FCC c) Orthorhombic d) BCT

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14) In metal forming, earing is a defect normally associated with:
a) Rolling of a sheet b) Extrusion of a rod
c) Drawing of a tube d) Deep drawing of a cup

15) Viscosity of a CO gas in blast furnace is

a) Indifferent to temperature b) decreases with temperature
c) Increases with temperature d) None of these options

16) What properties are exhibited by nickel-base superalloys, from the ones given below?
a) Good creep strength and oxidation resistance
b) Good creep strength but low fatigue resistance
c) Good wear resistance and low ductile to brittle transition temperature
d) Good magnetic properties and low electrical resistivity

17) The reaction (Solid)1  (Solid)2 + (Solid)3 is called __________________ reaction.

18) The part of a sand casting mold that acts as a reservoir of molten metal is called ________.

19) A room temperature strengthening mechanism for pure Al is ___________________.

20) The steady state potential of a metal (in an electrochemical experiment) in the absence of polarization
is called _____________ potential.

21) What is SCE? It is a reference electrode used for corrosion experiments.

a) Standard Copper Electrode
b) Standard Copper Electrode; Cu, CuSO4 (sat)
c) Standard Calomel Electrode; Ag, AgCl(s)/ sat. KCl
d) Saturated Calomel Electrode; Hg, Hg2Cl2(s)/ sat.KCl

22) Which of the following expression correctly represents the force acting on a dislocation of burgers
vector b, line direction t, and stress tensor s
a) s x ( t . b)
b) t x ( s . b)
c) t x ( s x b)
d) t .( s x b)

23) The tendency of some alloys to separate along grain boundaries when deformed at temperatures near
melting point is referred to as _____________.

24) Chemical potential of component 1 in a binary solution can be defined as

a) (∂A/ ∂n1)T, V,n2 b) (∂V/ ∂n1)S,V,n2
c) (∂H/ ∂n1)T ,S,n2 d) (∂G/ ∂n1)T,P,n2

25) Thermit welding is a form of

a) resistance welding b) gas welding
c) fusion welding d) forge welding

26) Cold cracking of weld is normally due to the presence of ______________ gas in the weld.
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27) The mechanism by which an edge dislocation can leave its glide plane is ____________.

28) Which of the following are the Miller indices of the line of the intersection of a (-1 -1 1) and a
(-1 -1 -1) plane in a cubic crystal
a) (1 -1 0) b) [1 -1 0] c) [-2 -2 0] d) [0 1 0]

29) Hot working doesn’t facilitate

a) Refinement of microstructure
b) Elimination of the orientated cast structure
c) Welding of minor cracks and unoxidized blowholes
d) Rapid diffusion and decrease in chemical heterogeneities of the cast ingot structure.

30) Which of the following does not contribute for the increased productivity of the blast furnace?
a) Fuel Injection
b) Humidified blast
c) Fine particles of raw materials
d) High top pressure

31) The temperature above which an anti-ferromagnetic material becomes paramagnetic is called
____________ temperature.

32) The bonding in sodium chloride is ______________ bonding.

33) Fick’s first law of diffusion is mathematically expressed as J = - D [dC/dX]. What does the negative
sign in this equation signify?
(a) negative values for diffusion coefficient are realistic
(b) flow of matter would occur from higher to lower concentration
(c) activation energy for diffusion is usually negative
(d) nothing specific, because X is a position variable which can vary from -∞ to +∞

34) Expand the characterization technique abbreviated as EDS, used for chemical identification,
______________________.

35) The energy difference between the Fermi level and vacuum level, in a solid, is called
___________________.

36) Semiconductors that emit light during recombination are called ____________ band gap
semiconductors.

37) Which of the following is not a Bravais lattice

a) Simple cubic b) Rhombohedral
c) Face centered tetragonal d) Face centered orthorhomic

38) Z-contrast imaging in the SEM is obtained using _______________ electrons.

39) If the first reflection from a BCC crystal has a Bragg angle of 22.2o, the second reflection will have an
angle of _________________.
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40) The motion of the boundary layer between two metals that occurs as a consequence of the difference
in diffusion rates of the metal atoms is known as _____________________.

41) An optical microscope, with a numerical aperture of 0.3, operates at a wavelength of 500 nm. Its
resolution is equal to ________________________.

42) The Lennard-Jones potential best describes which of the following:

a) The energy required to break a typical metal b) How defects affect lattice energy
c) The energy associated with stretching an atom d) Potential energy of a dislocation

43) Electrical conductivity in gold is reduced by alloy addition due to decrease in electron ___________.

44) ITO is a commonly used transparent semiconductor. ITO expands as ____________________ .

45) Polystyrene is obtained from the monomer styrene. The chemical formula for the monomer is
a) C8H8 b) C2H2 c) CH3OH d) C2H5OH

46) In the crystal structure of BaTiO3, if Ti atoms are located at the corners of the unit cell, then Ba atoms
are located at ___________________.

47) In Raman spectroscopy, if the emitted photon has a lower energy than the absorbed photon, it is called
_________________ shift.

48) A ceramic compound commonly used as a thermionic source in TEM is _______________________.

49) The binding energy of an electron in an H atom is -13.6 eV. What will the corresponding value be for
He+?

50) A thin film layer that is grown with the same lattice spacing as the substrate is called a
______________ layer.