MaterialsDC

MaterialsDC Meet-and-Greet

All are invited to join MaterialsDC for a meet-and-greet, fall kickoff, discussion salon, and/or happy hour.  Basically -- please join us for a glass of wine or a beer, some interesting discussion, and the chance to catch up with friends new and old in the MaterialsDC community.

When: Thursday, September 13, 6 pm (until we quit)
Where:  The Executive Conference Center, 3601 Wilson Boulevard (at Monroe), Suite 600
What:  Assorted beers, wines, and light hors d’œuvres
How: Metro to Virginia Square on the Orange Line, or park under the building (entrance on N Street)

Who:  Call your host, Toni Marechaux, at 202-607-5000 for more details or directions -- or register at the website. 

Materials Forum on Corrosion Education

The National Academies and the National Materials Advisory Board are sponsoring a Materials Forum on Corrosion Education for the 21st Century on March 30th, 2007.

The forum is intended to bring together corrosion specialists with materials and mechanical engineering educational leaders. The workshop will address the capability of U.S. engineering curricula to educate undergraduate students in corrosion identification and abatement. The workshop participants will speak about their perspectives on whether corrosion abatement is adequately addressed in our nation's engineering curricula and, if not, what issues need to be addressed to develop a comprehensive corrosion curriculum in undergraduate engineering.

The preliminary agenda is as follows:
Session 1: Motivation : Why is Corrosion Education Important?
Session 2: Current Practices : Corrosion Education Today
Session 3: Implementation : What needs to be done to improve Corrosion Education?

Time: 8:00am – 4:00pm March 30th, 2007
Location: Room 100 : Keck Center : 500 Fifth St. NW, Washington DC 20001 (Note the Keck Center has free parking for attendees)

Registration is open; you can also email the NMAB for more info.  Registration for the workshop is free and open. However seating is limited so early registration is advised.

Roadmap for Computational Materials Engineering

The NMAB has launched a new project on Integrated Computational Materials Engineering: Development of a Roadmap for a Grand Challenge in Materials. The project is sponsored by Departments of Defense and Energy, and a report is expected in early summer 2008.

The first meeting of the committee will be held on November 30, 2006.  The committee membership includes a range of thought leaders in this area, from industry, academia, and government.

 

Here's a description of what they plan to do:

In carrying out this study the committee will identify critical paths forward and propose a strategy to facilitate innovation in this interdisciplinary field; improve knowledge sharing among researchers, developers, and designers across the research programs supported by the federal government; identify the challenges associated with gaps in knowledge and understanding. Issues that might be considered include: workforce and educational needs for progressing the identified goals for the field; the separate roles of professional societies, software firms and academic institutions in development and maintenance of the infrastructure, and identifying the connections between research in computational materials engineering and other fields, in particular, emerging software and web-based technologies.

In summary the committee will be asked to:

1. Explore the benefits and promise of integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) to materials research through a series of case studies of compelling materials research themes that are enabled by recent advances and accomplishments in the field of computational materials.

2. Assess the benefits of a comprehensive ICME capability to the national priorities.

3. Establish a roadmap for the development and maintenance of an ICME infrastructure, including databases and model integration activities. This should include both near-term and long-range goals, likely participants and responsible agents of change.

4. Suggest strategies to best meet the identified opportunities.

New Materials Handbook

Just got a new materials handbook and ideas are circling through my head, so I had to share. The book is called "Transmaterial: A Catalog of Materials that Redefine our Physical Environment" edited by Blaine Brownell. The author also has a "product of the week" subscription service.

The main difference with this book, for me, is that I tend to open a traditional materials handbook looking to fill a specific design need with specific properties. Transmaterial does almost the opposite. The photos pique my interest to figure out what I could make with such a gorgeous or interesting material. As materials scientists, we can easily stay focused in our own silo of interests around aerospace or metal or  semiconductors. This book provides a nice cross pollinization.

I believe it is intended for designers more than materials scientists. The focus is on products, with inconsistent material properties cited. The magic is in the photos. They capture your interest and inspire me more to design, build and talk about materials than any traditional catalog or handbook. Perhaps it is the product focus that focuses one on building and getting something to market rather than on the science. Both are important but this is one we see less of.

While there are many beautiful looking composites made from recycled materials into countertops, flooring, ceilings, furniture and architectural panels, I am posting because there are a lot of items that are useful industrially.

There are new adaptations of familiar materials and technology:

• Very elegant carbon fiber furniture by Giovanni Pagnotta
• Kinetic Glass by The Living which changes shape by sensors and switches to respond to environmental conditions and signal building occupants when unhealthy levels of carbon dioxide or other toxins are reached.
• Lovely IsoGrid by VyaTek with continuous fiber reinforced array of ribs integrated with thin wall structures for light weight motor vehicles or their ExoGrid for similar applications made as a titanium graphite composite triangular space frame and designed for bicycles originally.

Some items I hadn't seen before, though admittedly there's a lot I haven't seen:

• Spherical micro solar cells made from single crystal silicon with a lot of potential for portable devices made by Kyosemi Corp
• Polystyrene Cloud shelving by Cap Design SPA for my office, because it is gorgeous
• Transparent high strength corundum ceramics for IR windows, armor, and high temperature/high wear environments made by Fraunhofer IKTS

A book like this opens the field up for non materials people and it also inspires an industry person like me. Anything that gets people excited to talk about materials is a good start, in my mind. Anything that inspires us to build something new or improve a design is even better.   Please take a look and reply with your thoughts.

Posted by Rose Thun

Performance Manufacturing

“The four FRONT members have developed a method to materialise free hand sketches. They make it possible by using a unique method where two advanced techniques are combined. Pen strokes made in the air are recorded with Motion Capture and become 3D digital files; these are then materialised through Rapid Prototyping into real pieces of furniture.”

Lovely, isn't it? Especially the video.

It borders on performance art, perhaps we could call it performance manufacturing, and it is the personification of the Microsoft commercials, in the present. Brilliant women, creating an interesting mix of technologies to yield a very useful collaboration and design tool. Materials science mash-up as the software industry does.

Posted by Rose Thun

Commercialization from an industry point of view

While I certainly think there is a need to do basic research, commercialization is something the majority of organizations and scientists are required to do. Bringing science and technology to market is generally not as successful.  So, if we are required to do it, it is important to be as realistic and effective as possible to bring.

Guy Kawasaki's recent comments on commercialization are quite relevant to the DoD and government research world. Guy Kawasaki is an author, entrepreneur,  former evangelist for Apple and venture capitalist. The reality checks he raises here are in the unrealistic expectations people have about the ease of commercializing technology.

• Productizing technology is difficult and the basic research is not enough to take to market. "Those that can do, do. Those that can’t do, license."
• Terms of a typical venture capital or commercialization deal  for an inventor or technology organization -- for example, terms for business control, financial agreements, etc. -- are not what most organizations imagine them to be. My conversations with inventors and venture capitalists confirm this.
• The transfer of knowledgable people is more important than the CD-ROM of findings to making a commercialization succeed. The people who do transfer to work on commercialization have to be satisfied by very different motivation to succeed commercially versus scientifically.
• Valuations are also completely different. From a VC point of view, "the longer it took to make something that hasn’t been turned into a product, the less it’s worth." R&D is a sunk cost.

Whether you agree with the approach fully or not, VCs influence a great deal of how technology comes to market and understanding how the game is played is an important part of getting to market. It is worth reading.

Posted by Rose Thun

November 14 Dinner Meeting

Challenges in Conserving the Confederate Submarine H.L. Hunley
November 14, 2006

On August 8, 2000 the confederate submarine H.L. Hunley was raised from offshore Charleston, SC where it had lain buried below the seafloor for 166 years. The mystery of locating the sub was solved but new questions arose pertaining to its operation, loss, and the identity of the crew.  Also, the current status of the technology to preserve the submarine was questioned and how to best preserve and interpret the submarine explored. This talk explores both what has been discovered and what is as yet unknown about the sub and preserving its remains. The Hunley is under consideration by ASM as an historical landmark.

Speaker bio:
Dr. Robert S. Neyland is the Head of the Underwater Archaeology Branch at the Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy. Dr. Neyland received his Anthropology degrees from Texas A&M University, his Masters in 1990 and Doctorate in 1994.   He was Project Director for the raising and conservation of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.  The Hunley project received the only award ever given by the National Trust and Advisory Council on Historic Preservation for partnership. He also received in 2002 the Don Turner Award from USS Constitution Museum for his work on Hunley. During his career he has worked on a variety of shipwreck sites: a Bronze Age shipwreck in the Mediterranean, post-medieval wrecks in the Netherlands, and numerous shipwrecks in the Caribbean and North America.  Recent field projects include U.S. Navy ships from the anti-slavery patrol, WWII wrecks from D-Day, and American Revolutionary War naval shipwrecks including that of John Paul Jones, Bonhomme Richard.

At Alfio's in Chevy Chase, MD.  More details at the Chapter website.

National Materials Advancement Award

The winner of this year's National Materials Advancement Award is Dr. Leo Christodoulou from DARPA.  This award recognizes leadership in materials and policy, and Leo is a terrific choice!  The awards ceremony and reception will be December 6 at the National Press Club, from 6 to 8 pm.  Save the date!

Scientists and Engineers can lobby, too

A new organization, Scientists and Engineers for America, launched yesterday. It is dedicated to electing public officials who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy. Their vision statement: "The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research." More information at SEA.

Oct 10 Dinner Meeting

Please join us for dinner and a discussion of technology-and-business development in new materials, presented by Dr. Dawn White, CEO of Solidica.

Location: Executive Conference Center, Arlington, Virginia
NOTE LOCATION CHANGE!!  (Just this month; we'll be back at Alfio's in November)

Schedule:
6:00 - social hour (beer and wine included)
6:45 - dinner
7:30 - introductions and announcements
7:45 - dessert and coffee
8:00 - presentation

Please RSVP to chair@asm-dc.org
Cost: $20 members; $10 full-time students
Note that you are welcome to attend the talk only; but if you reserve for dinner, we do need you to pay this cost!

The "Sound and the Fury" of Simultaneous Technology and Business Development

Abstract:
Additive manufacturing technology, once confined to prototyping applications, is emerging as a disruptive approach to low volume, high performance applications that open up new design horizons.  Key to this transition, has been development of processes and equipment that can fabricate components using structural materials.  Ultrasonic Consolidation is a solid state, direct metal additive manufacturing process that uses ultrasonic energy to produce true metallurgical bonds between sequential metal layers as they are deposited.  UC combines material additions with subtractive milling to fabricate net shape articles with the accuracy and surface finish of a machined product, however, features such as enclosed channels, which cannot be fabricated using conventional subtractive techniques are possible using this hybrid process.  The UC process proceeds at very low temperature, allowing fibers, sensors, electronic devices, etc. to be embedded in metal articles.  To leverage the disruptive capabilities of this manufacturing approach, Solidica recently embarked on development of miniaturized wireless, mesh networked, sensor devices for incorporation in additively manufactured enclosures.  This technology combination enables ultra-rugged, tamperproof sensors to be placed harsh locations, retrofitted to aging systems, and incorporated in novel, multi-functional components with unique performance attributes. 

Speaker Bio:
Dr. Dawn White is the Founder and CTO of Solidica, Inc. an advanced manufacturing company in the rapid prototyping sector developing products based on the Ultrasonic Consolidation process invented by Dr. White.   Her experience prior to founding Solidica includes Staff Technical Specialist in the Ford Research Laboratory, managing research groups in the areas of rapid tooling and advanced welding technology; Director of Program Development in the Advanced Technology Development Division of MTS Systems, Inc., and research metallurgist at the US Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory.  Dawn White received her BS and MS degrees in Metallurgical Engineering, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois. She has been professionally active on technical committees of TMS and AWS, has published over 30 papers, and is the holder of 16 US patents.