GATE

GATE 2024 Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus

20 January, 2024
Artika Shan

GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus 2024 is designed to test aspiring metallurgical engineers’ knowledge and skills in various topics including mechanical metallurgy, thermodynamics, and physical metallurgy.

Topics covered in the syllabus 

The  Syllabus covers topics ranging from fundamentals to advanced concepts and applications. There are several sections of the GATE Metallurgy Syllabus 2024 and each section focuses on a specific area of metallurgical engineering the candidates should have a firm grasp of all the topics covered in the syllabus. 

Read more: GATE Syllabus 2024, IISC Bangalore GATE Subject Wise Syllabus

Syllabus sections:

Below are the sections of the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus 2024:

1. Metallurgical Thermodynamics: This section covers topics like laws of thermodynamics, thermodynamic properties of materials, phase transformations, and rate processes.
Subjects
a. Law of thermodynamics:
Topics:
1. First law – Energy conservation, Second law – entropy
2. Enthalpy, Gibbs, and Helmholtz free energy
3. Maxwell’s relations, Chemical potential
4. Applications to metallurgical systems, solutions, ideal and regular solutions
5. Gibbs phase rule, phase equilibria, binary phase diagram and lever rule, free-energy vs. composition diagrams
6. The equilibrium constant, Activity, Ellingham, and phase stability diagrams
7. Thermodynamics of point defects, surfaces and interfaces, adsorption and segregation phenomenab. Electrochemistry Topics:
Single electrode potential, Nernst equation, electrochemical cells and potential pH diagrams.

2. Transport Phenomena and Rate Processes:
This section of the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus consists of the following topics:

  •  Heat transfer: 1-D steady-state conduction, Conduction, and Fourier’s Law
  • Momentum transfer: Mechanical energy balance equation, Concept of viscosity, Bernoulli’s equation, mechanical energy balance equation, flow past plane surfaces and through pipes and shell balances. 
  • Convection: Heat transfer coefficient relations for forced convection.
  • Mass transfer: Mass transfer coefficients and diffusion and Fick’s laws.
  • Radiation: Stefan-Boltzman Law, Black body radiation, and Kirchoff’s Law.
  • Dimensional Analysis: Significance of dimensionless numbers and Buckingham Pi theorem.
  • Electrochemical Kinetics: Polarization
  • Basic laws of chemical kinetics: The reaction constant, basic laws of chemical kinetics, first-order reactions, oxidation kinetics, and heterogeneous reactions.

3.  Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy:
This section of the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus consists of topics including oxidation reactions and inclusion control and iron making. 

Subject:
a.  Comminution Techniques:
This section includes topics like flotation, size classification, gravity, and other methods of mineral beneficiation. 

b. Material and Energy Balances:
This section comprises topics like principles and processes for the extraction of non-ferrous metals- copper, aluminum, and titanium. 

c.Iron and Steel Making: This section covers topics like: 

  • Production of metallurgical coke,
  • Other methods of iron making (COREX, MIDRE)
    Material and heat balance in blast furnace
  • Structure and properties of slags and molten salts – basicity of slags – sulfide and phosphate capacity of slags

d. Primary Steel Making: This section includes topics like process dynamics, basic oxygen furnaces, electric arc furnaces, and oxidation dynamics. 

e. Secondary Steelmaking: Argon stirring, deoxidation, desulphurization, principles of degassing methods, inclusion shape control, and basics of stainless steel manufacturing.
Continuous Casting: This section includes topics like heat transfer in the mould, fluid flow in the tundish and mould, segregation, and inclusion control. 

4. Physical Metallurgy Syllabus:
This section of the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus includes topics like the Gibbs-Thomspson effect, Bragg’s law, and atomic models. 

Below are the most important topics in this section:

  • X-ray Diffraction: This section deals with topics like optical metallography, Bragg’s law, and principles of SEM imaging. 
  • Chemical Bonding: This section includes topics like metallic, covalent, and secondary bonding in materials, covalent solids and polymers, and crystal structure of solids. 
  • Crystal Imperfections: This section includes topics like Coherent, semi-coherent, and incoherent interfaces, and point, line, and surface defects. 
  • Diffusion in solids: This section covers topics like steady state and error function solutions, diffusion equations, uphill diffusion, Kirkendall effect, pipe diffusion, atomic models for interstitial and substitutional diffusion, and grain boundary diffusion. 
  • Electronic: This section includes topics like electronic, magnetic and optical properties of materials. 
  • Phase transformation: This section deals with topics like driving force, homogenous and heterogeneous nucleation, and growth kinetics. 
  1. Solid state transformations: This section covers topics like: 
  1. Spinoidal Decomposition 
  2. Precipitation 
  3. Massive transformation 
  4. Ordering 
  5. Massive transformation 
  6. Eutectoid transformation 
  7. Discontinuous precipitation
  8. Diffusionless transformations 
  9. Gibbs- Thompson effect 
  10. Precipitate coarsening. 

5. Mechanical Metallurgy:
This section of the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus includes topics like stress exponent, partial dislocations, and active energy. 

The important topics of this section are: 

Subjects:
Stress-Strain: 

Topics:
The topics under this section include topics like representation by Mohr’s circle, strain tensor and stress tensor, compliance tensor and elasticity stiffness, plastic deformation by slip and twinning, and yield criteria. 

Dislocation Theory: 

Topics:
This section consists of sections like source and multiplication of dislocations, edge, screw and mixed dislocations, partial dislocations, stress fields around dislocations, and dislocation interactions.

Strengthening Mechanism: The topics included in this section are strengthening due to grain boundaries, work/strain hardening, solid solution, and precipitation and dispersion. 

Fracture Behavior: This section includes linear elastic fracture mechanisms, Griffith’s theory, fracture toughness, ductile to brittle transition, and fractography. 

Fatigue: Crack growth, cyclic stress-strain behavior, and low and high cycle fatigue. 

High-temperature deformation and failure: This section covers topics like failure creep and stress rupture, mechanisms of high-temperature deformation and stress exponent, and activation energy. 

6. Manufacturing Process: 

This section of the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus includes topics like metal forming and production of powders and casting practices. 

Below are topics mentioned in detail:

Metal Casting: This includes topics like feeding, risering, gating, casting practices, and casting defects. 

Hot, warm, and cold working of metals: This section consists of topics like fundamentals of metal forming processes of rolling, wire drawing, forging, extrusion, defects informing, 

Metal joining: The section covers topics like principles of soldering, welding metallurgy, brazing and welding, and defects in welded joints in steel and aluminum alloys. 

Powder metallurgy: This section deals with topics like sintering, production of powders, and compaction. 

Non-destructive testing: This section covers topics like dye-penetrant, radiography, ultrasonic, acoustic emission, edgy current, and magnetic particle inspection methods.

Marking Scheme for GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus 2024: 

Below is the marking scheme for the GATE Metallurgical Engineering exam paper.

  • Subject Marks – 85 marks 
  • General Aptitude (GA) of Metallurgical Engineering (MT): 15 Marks 
  • Total Marks: 100 marks 
  • Total time allotted in minutes for the subject: 180 mins 

Books recommended for GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus: 

Below are the books to prepare for the GATE 2024 Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus: 

Name of the books       Author 
Higher Engineering Mathematics B. S. Grewal
Reasoning and Aptitude Nem Singh 
Manufacturing ProcessSandy Khippal 
Mechanical Metallurgy George E. Dieter 
Heat and Thermodynamics Amit Chattopadhyay

Read more: GATE Preparation Books – Best Books For GATE 2024

FAQs on GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus:
Listed below are FAQs pertaining to GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus 2024:  

  1. What is the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus?
    GATE 2024 Syllabus of Metallurgical Engineering includes seven sections including,  metallurgical thermodynamics, engineering mathematics, mineral processes and extractive metallurgy , transport phenomena, and rate processes, and mechanical metallurgy and manufacturing process.
  2. How much weight does each section of Metallurgy’s GATE syllabus have?
    The section-wise weightage of the GATE Metallurgy Syllabus includes:
    1. Physical Metallurgy – 20%
    2. Mechanical Metallurgy – 15%
    3. Manufacturing Process – 10%
    4. General Aptitude – 15%
    5. Engineering Mathematics – 15%
    6. Metallurgical Thermodynamics – 10%
    7. Transport Phenomena and Rate Processes – 10%
    8. Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy – 5%

  3. What are the key topics in the mechanical metallurgy section of the GATE Metallurgy Syllabus?
    The main topics covered in the mechanical metallurgy section of the GATE metallurgy section are strengthening mechanism and dislocation theory and fatigue.
  4. Which books are recommended for the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus?
    The recommended books included in the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus are:
    1. Mineral Processing- S.K Jain
    2. Mechanical Metallurgy- George E Dieter
    3. Physical Metallurgy: V. Raghvan
    4. Manufacturing Processes: R.K. Rajput
  5. How to prepare for the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus 2024?
    The aspirants can follow the below-mentioned preparation tips for the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus:
    1. Plan to complete 1-2 topics in a day.
    2. Create notes for each topic during the time of preparation
    3. Solve previous year’s practice papers by downloading them
    4. Keep a tab on the level of your preparation by attending regular mock tests.Read more: How To Prepare For GATE 2024 In 3 Months, Tips & Tricks
  6. What are the books to study for the section on transport phenomena and rate processes of the GATE Metallurgy Engineering syllabus?
    The top books for the transport phenomena and rate processes section of the GATE Metallurgy Syllabus are:

           1. Rate Processes in Metallurgy- Mohanty A.K.
           2. An Introduction to Transport Phenomena in Materials Engineering- David Gaskell 

  1. In the Manufacturing Processes section of the syllabus, what topics are covered?The main topics in the manufacturing processes of the syllabus are metal casting, hot, warm, and cold working of metals, powder metallurgy, non-destructive testing, and metal joining.
  2. How many marks are allocated for the subjection section of metallurgical engineering?
    According to the GATE Metallurgical Engineering Syllabus, 85 marks are devoted to metallurgical engineering (MT).