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| James C. Williams |
Abstract: High performance systems clearly require high performance materials for their construction. Consequently, there has been and continues to be an emphasis on research efforts aimed at creating new materials concepts and at developing materials processing ideas. At least in the structural materials area, much of this effort has been focused on new materials and process concepts that offer the promise of improved performance. Over time, the range of options available to the materials developer has become more limited due to the natural exhaustion of most of the obvious possibilities. As a result, there are fewer remaining materials and process concepts available to be examined and exploited for introduction into future generation products. Those concepts that are successfully demonstrated to be feasible also will likely be more difficult to reduce to practice and often will require significant capital investment to allow them to be produced or practiced in useful quantities or on a commercial scale. As a result, there is a danger of a widening time lag between proof of concept and actual commercialization of new materials and processes.
This talk will discuss this issue and will attempt to describe some of the barriers that can prevent or delay the product introduction of advanced materials and new processes. Some of these barriers are economic, while others are cultural or philosophical. Where appropriate, the talk will use examples and also will suggest ways to mitigate or minimize these barriers. It may turn out that these non-technical factors will pace the future introduction of new materials and process technology to a greater extent than the rate at which new technical concepts are put forward. Therefore, it is important for the materials research community to recognize this "soft" aspect of the technology introduction process and address it concurrently during research and development activities.
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| Prof. Thomas W. Eager |
In the mid-1980's, the United States, Japan and the European Economic Community declared that the three industries that would drive economic growth into the next century were advanced materials, information technology and biotechnology. Now, more than a decade later, history has proven these predictions to be halfway correct. The next decade will prove whether the remainder of these predictions will come to pass.
Clearly, the information technology industry (computers and telecommunications) can point to many tens of billions of dollars of new businesses over the past 15 years. At the other extreme, the biotechnology industry is still based on promises. Although there is still great excitement about the potential of new biotechnological advances, there simply has not been a very measurable effect on the gross domestic product, unless one wishes to include the tremendous increase in health care costs over the past decade, which represents a negative impact on the economy.
The apparent success of the materials industry lies between information technology and biotechnology. The growth of new materials businesses has been nowhere near the prognostications of ten years ago; however, the properties, durability and economy of traditional materials has improved dramatically over the past two decades.
This is the quiet revolution. It is a quiet revolution because it represents a cost avoidance rather than creation of new materials companies. The average consumer does not perceive the change due to the continuous nature of the improvements, as contrasted with discontinuous changes that are claimed and advertised by the information technology industry.
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| Prof. Shi Likai |
New processing technology plays an important role in the development of advanced materials. China's Hi-Tech Advanced Materials Research and Development Program always emphasizes the research and development of new processing technologies for advanced materials. Under the support of the program, in the last 10 years the obvious progress has been made in spray forming, directional solidification, superplasticity forming, metallic ion implantation and surface modification, colloidal forming and in-situ solidification of ceramics, high-temperature self-propagation syntheses (SHS), high gravity synthesis of nano-scale particle etc. Some of the mentioned processing technologies have made great contributions to development of advanced materials, some have had practical application in industry. This paper gives brief introduction to China's Hi-Tech Advanced Materials Research and Development Program, and summarizes some of recent progress in processing technology of the program.
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| Prof. Masahiro Koiwa |
Diffusion is a process that is fundamental in the art and science of materials. The knowledge of diffusion behavior, therefore, is essential for the production of materials or for their use in practical applications. In the first part of this paper, a brief review is given on historical development of the quantitative study of diffusion: the establishment of the diffusion law by A. Fick, the first quantitative measurement of solid state diffusion (Au in Pb) by W. Roberts-Austen, and the demonstration of the self-diffusion in Pb using natural radioactive isotope by G. Hevesy. In the second part, recent investigations on the mechanism of diffusion in intermetallics compounds are reviewed.
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| Prof. Hyung Yong Ra |
Spray forming, also termed as spray casting or spray deposition, processes generally involve three sequential steps: I) atomizationmelt stream is broken into small droplets by gas jet; II) transfer of dropletsthe drag force by the high velocity gas jet accelerate the flying speed of the droplets. During the transfer step, droplets are cooled rapidly with a cooling rate of approximately 102~106 K/sec, resulting in a very fine spray formed preform microstructure; and III) deposition-droplets of semi-solid state impinge the substrate or surface of preform, which determine the shape and porosity of the preform. Components produced by spray forming offer many advantages, e.g. fine scale microstructure, high efficiency for near-net-shape and metal matrix composite and flexibility for casting of materials which accompany serious segregations in conventional castings. This paper overviews the spray forming research activities carried out world wide, concentrating particularly on the controlling scheme of preform shape, temperature, developments in spray forming device and alloys for commercial applications. Spray forming research activities carried out in Korea will also be reviewed.
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