The microstructure of a material is essential, as it allows us to understand its state, the heat treatment it has undergone, the changes experienced during a manufacturing process, and the potential to improve its mechanical properties. Distinguishing the existing microconstituents presents some complexity. Traditionally, some microstructure atlases have helped identify microconstituents by comparison with the microphotographs in the atlas, classified into different materials. Nowadays, there are websites with labeled microphotographs that can be used with the same proposal. However, from a teaching-learning perspective, it is important to classify the microstructures into different materials and beyond labeling the photographs, to describe the different microconstituents, the heat treatment and/or the manufacturing process the material has undergone. From the perspective of manufacturing engineering, it is essential to carefully select and classify the microstructures representing some stages of a process or evidence of a incorrect process execution, for example.

The Engineering Manufacturing Processes area of the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering of Albacete is developing an innovation project to create a web-based learning environment in the domain mentioned above. For this purpose, many microstructures obtained over the years are being classified, labeled with the most relevant details and accompanied by explanations. Furthermore, the teaching team plans to leverage Artificial Intelligence principles to enhance the educational possibilities of this web. The generation of synthetic images using generative adversarial networks, GANs, has been proved effective for creating synthetic microstructures. This technology might allow microstructures of a determined material, such as carbon steels, to be obtained from a list of conditions. At this moment, an application to create microstructures of annealed and quenched carbon steels has been developed. The next step would be to introduce more materials, heat treatments, and manufacturing constraints to create the corresponding microstructures. As can be seen, the project is very ambitious, and it is necessary to take small steps to advance it.

In this work, the authors present innovative teaching guidelines to create microstructures of carbon steels and the expected educational value within the described learning environment.

Keywords: Materials microstructure, web design, manufacturing engineering.