Answer:
Materials are ubiquitous, so pervasive we often take them for granted. Yet they play a central role in much of our daily lives, in practically all manufacturing industries, and in much research and development in the physical and engineering sciences. Materials have a generality comparable to that of energy and information, and the three together comprise nearly all technology. For COSMAT purposes, we define materials as substances having properties which make them useful in machines, structures, devices, and products.
It is useful to depict a global materials cycle, shown in the Frontispiece. The earth is the source of all materials as well as the ultimate repository. Minerals and oils are taken from the earth, and trees and vegetable materials are harvested. Through beneficiation, purification, refining, pulping, and other processes these raw materials are converted into useful industrial materials—metals, chemicals, paper, for example. In subsequent processing, these bulk materials are modified to become engineering materials aimed at meeting performance requirements. The engineering materials are then fashioned by manufacturing processes into shapes and parts which are assembled to make a useful end-product. The product, once its useful life has finished, is eventually returned as waste to the earth, or it undergoes dismantling and material recovery to provide basic materials to feed into the materials cycle again.
