Metallurgy and Mechanical Engineering Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering

Serendipity or rather signing-up for a Google Alert for the new record breaking R and D achievement, Inverse Temperature HSLA-High Strength Low Alloy Steels, (cf. my earlier post - challenge) introduced me to the excellent, Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering.

Several papers have already been brought to my attention. It is with pleasure that I invite colleagues to join me in reading their favourite subjects-alerts not forgetting to support Brazil's efforts to save the planets rain-forests - by the excellence of our professional skills in metallurgical exergy and information-entropy theory -fairly shared.

NB. Free online with the usual restrictions (for personal use etc. cf policy) The journal should be abbreviated in citations as J. Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. & Eng.

Good luck, make good use of this resource and best wishes over the festive season and beyond.

Nine Top Search Tips for Research and Innovation Ideas on the European Union (EU) Framework Programme 7 (FP7)

It is not always easy to know where to look in the huge European Research and Innovation data base for project ideas and possible collaborations, hence the following guide from my recent experience. (LINK)

I know that all of my colleagues in materials science, physics, chemistry and engineering... are a very intelligent lot but like most highly solicited professionals, short for time (and "time is money").

If the above link is sufficient for some, it many not be sufficient for all?

To do you and the EU - Cordis web site justice, I promise to post on rapid search tips specifically for the hard pressed Materials Scientist and Engineer and perhaps also to our Journalist friends who need breaking news information in the advanced materials and processes revival. From the early days of the first highly successful, peaceful re-structuring of the sensitive EU Coal Iron and Steel Economic Community, ERA. much may be learned in the present recessionary circumstances. Shake your blue's away! Progress in the advanced materials and processes has not only opened vast new and fabulous fields for in scientific and technological development but has also encouraged vigorous competition for new solutions to life saving themes. Indeed a renewed interest for traditional mature technological advances such as coal and steel, cement and clay can be seen in attempts to face the colossal energy and climate change challenges. Similarly a reappraisal of wood and forestry management must be put firmly on the global the agenda. New bio-materials, synthetic and natural and mans genius in bio-mimicry will spur the international community to bigger and better things!

Green and Powerful - Energy Materials - Happy Birthday 1st Year of Materials UK KTN-Knowledge Transfer Network

A one page conference report appeared in the Nov.2008 issue my professional Institute journal cf Sources below (1 of 4).

The figure left is due to the Energy Technologies Institute-ETI.(2)

What was a good summary, yet appeared to be a fairly small window to one of the pillars of all materials, technology and engineering fields; namely, the so-called "Energy Materials", ie. materials used for energy harnessing-generation-conversion and storage.

One way to make sure of the readers degree of interest?

Well I checked link given - Materials UK, (2) proof if needed, that the summary was good and that my interest was of the required level-stimulated!

This turned out to be a rich resource on Advanced Materials: Technological and Engineering overview, pointers-roadmaps, Strategies for progress. This is an excellant structuring of the UK combined effort to find the necessary synergies to face the great challenges which the Future undoubtably holds in particular due to Climate Change and fossile based energy sources.

Dare I say "multi-national or better multi-cultural?" structuring of this island-commonwealth?

NB. Great Graphics for you blog or company presentation. cf above due to ETI. The more echo the better and progress greener! (2)

But that is not all!

To the brave hearted; this can also open more avenues to the earlier collaborative European Union co-ordinated EuMaT (3) series of initiatives. "Energy Materials" ie. materials used for energy harnessing-generation-conversion and storage.
These advance materials, especially those called-upon to operate under very high temperatures in corrosive gas environments such special steels and alloys with or without complex ceramic coatings are commonly refered to as high-duty, high integrety materials incidentally naturally calls for and supports massive R and D effort in short the medium and longterm. eg. such as that in which I was involved in at my old out-fit "Imphy SA"- now Eramet-Aubert and Duval and Arcelor-Mittal - suffering albeit on a smaller scale, a similar fate to that of the the UK Nuclear Industry, (4) but in reverse!

NB1. I had pre-posted the above and was checking appearance and links when I found a further link on (4) with precious information on the potential of Scotland as a prime renewable energy source, specifically the example of Isle of Jura, Argyll, described and commented by the highly experienced Sir William Lithgow Scottish Shipbuilding Industrialist and Fellow of Engineering. W. Lithgow treats two of the themes main subjects sessions at the Conf. (1) and (2) Power Generation and Distribution cf. (4) additional information.

NB2. Great Graphics for you blog or company presentation. The more echo the better and progress greener! (2)

Sources:

1 Materials World Nov 2008
NB. Appologies- The Materials World Feature "Talking Energy is available to members only, however allow me to invite you to read the many features open to all and point out the many other open features in the abondant archives. I purposely avoided giving to much detail in order to respect the Journal. However if there are requests for a shortened version of the Feature, I will be pleased to consider this as an opporunity.

More importantly, The Institute (IoM3) publishes 20 peer reviewed very high quality specialised journals both in print and online for a global audience.

2. Energy Materials UK-KTN Knowledge Transfer Network

3. European Technology Platform for Advanced Materials and Technologies

4. Comparing nuclear power in France and England by Prof Jack Haris FRS FEng.FRS.

European Round-up of Metallurgists and Materials Scientists I - France's Society of Metals and Materials SF2M

In many ways this may appear as a "Tale of Two Cities" - London and Paris, by reference to the famous book by Charles Dickens. By some coincidence the opening line :

“ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... ”

is in many ways still relevant today, highlighted of course by the current crises and generally of opportunities and menace so dear to our colleagues in marketing and more...

As a long-standing french resident and oft-times visitor to my local Metallurgical and Materials Society - The French Society of Metallurgy and Materials, LA SOCIETE FRANCAISE DE METALLURGIE ET DE MATERIAUX (SF2M)- I feel it is high-time that I personally introduce my english speaking colleagues, of whatever nationality, to this fine effort by our french colleagues.

Of course many of you may have attended the many conferences and meetings organised by SF2M in Paris, elsewhere in France and globally in association with her sister organisation in the European Union.

Unfortunately only their Home Page is in English but then you do know where to seek expert help, or do you?

But let me invite you to visit their many pages and high quality peer reviewed papers, conferences etc., or follow my first professional footsteps in French as a translator of abstracts from English to French and vice verso for some of the leading British and Metallurgy publishers at the time, who also published global abstracts of all publications relevant to metallurgy and materials.

I shall close with the the most famous quotation from the same Dicken's Book

“ It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done;
it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. ”
—Final sentence of A Tale of Two Cities

I am, or translated in french, Je reste;

Yours in Metallurgy and Materials and related - Le votre en Métallurgie et Materiaux et connexe.

Cordially -Cordialement

Source:

English Presentation

SF2M-Main site in french

New Challenge: Mat Sci and Eng : New European Record- Solar PV-Photovoltaic Energy Converstion to Electricity Efficiency 39.4%

Conversations-on-Innovations: New European Record-Science and Engineering - Solar PV-Photovoltaic Energy Converstion to Electricity Efficiency Reaches. [Link below]

Could a concurrent engineering approach pushing current design from prototype to market and if necessary carry out further R and D to optimise the performance/cost ratio...

Are the fundamental limits known? cf. for example, the approach reported in my previous post on nanoelectronics. Thanks to PlanetThougths for the encouragement and motivation for me to comment an so hopefully reach my colleague-readers in Materials Science and Engineering and Innovation.

More...

Mea-Culpa I: Royal Soc Publications on Maths,Physical and Engineering Sciences -Links & Search Strategies

Readers must be annoyed to see uncommented features appearing on my blog menu bars! This is an attempt to correct at least one of my misdemeanours the latest one:

I have published "new" RSS feed from The Royal Society, Philosophical Transactions A (Phil Trans R.Soc A) in the RHS-right hand side menu and widgets column. It is taken from the first "all materials" feature (Jan 2006) that I came across, on a recent materials science and engineering search . It lists freely available publications on porous materials, pulled together by a highly reputed team of prefaced by a Team of UK metallurgists, materials scientists and engineers

Preface

I trust you will appreciate this approach and that it may encourage colleagues to make full use of such features as well as the new Google Blogger Tools to facilitate referencing.

I put my first post and introduction to the R. Soc. publications and activities only a few days ago (18 Nov. 2008) at the following link posted on my site, "This-Above-All. :

A MUST READ: Roadmaps in Science and Development -Energy Policy - The National Academies-The Royal Society of London

I for one will be making even more use of this as well as my Institutional Journals (20 peer reviewed online materials for IOM3 members)

eg. cf previous post (18 Nov08)

" It's not HSLA - Bainite" : "Nanostructured Steels"-Green Light by Irvine-based Materials Science Co-MMFX Tech Corp - Corrosion and Toughness Themes

or wider still

Up for review - Top Ten Materials bookmarked to be at the forefront of Technology - Ten Years On (9 Oct. 08)

It's not HSLA-Bainite"Nanostructured Steels"-Green Light by Irvine-based Materials Science Co-MMFX Tech Corp - Corrosion and Toughness Themes

Is my rendering of the recent communiqué by several news sources concerning the additional financing of nanostructured steel mill cf. (ref.1) and TEM-transmission electron microscope image opposite.

At first sight I thought I could "kill two birds with one stone".

1. Give an industrial news item on the nanostructured steel theme from MMFX of Welland Ontario Canada. (Finance approved ref.1) Always good news to see the industrial realisations in mainstream mature industries such as steel production (sustainable-durable development).

2. Perhaps supply an answer to questions raised by a recent (May2008) stunning, all to rare, research announcement on the same theme, nanostructured steel, by one of the foremost science breaking peer reviewed journals, Science.

"Nanostructured Inverse Temperature Toughness of very high strength low alloyed steels by a team of Japanese Researchers, at the reputed National Institute for Materials Science, JP: Inverse Temperature Dependence of Toughness in an Ultra-fine Grain-Structure Steel" : Vol. 320. no. 5879, pp. 1057 - 1060 DOI: 10.1126/science.1156084 cf. Web Sources and Links below ref 2. Substantial further support information from the authors on their work may be found in ref. 3

I was particularly intrigued by the this second announcement and by the possibility of industrial realisation.

If industrialised this constitutes a further major step forward to add to the already huge advances in understanding toughness in steel in research and practice, from the infamous days of DBTT-Ductile to Brittle (toughness) Transition Temperature during WWII learned at great cost in terms of life and material.

But some doubt on this was voiced to quote from the Materials World news article:

"However, a UK industry representative told Materials World that he is sceptical about the research. " cf. the full informative back-ground news (ref 4 below).

From my own experience, I remember obtaining industrial results, reliably, systematically, at least six months before many-(all?) of the lessor capitalised and lessor equipped Researchers. There was of course some serendipity - and strong belief on a hunch but above all, in-depth knowledge of the manufacturing equipment and process as well as the confidence of the work-force in pushing the limits. (LINK earlier post and publication on this blog - ref. 5 below) Similarily, could this be the case for the industrialisation of the Japanese findings or at least could the industrialisation be much closer to realisation than voiced in by ref 5?

This second hunch stems from the fact that I (and many others much more directly engaged in such work) are particularly aware of the important online corpus of peer reviewed work available on the Cambridge Univ. site much of it due to Prof Bhadeshia and his associates and collaborators.

I jumped the gun by putting links to Cambridge Univ. site in my steel links on my right hand side blog menu.

However, I'm afraid that MMFX's announcement concerns strong, corrosion resistant, Iron- wt9% Chromium (Fe-9%Cr). The laminar platelet (described as plywood) micro-nanostructure is claimed to be superiorly tailored to avoid classical micro-galvanic cells (electrolysis, OK?) corrosion mechanism.

Although the company like many mini-mills appear capable of producing "greatly" improved toughness HSLA - steel such as those reported by the Japanese Team: EAF-Electric Arc Furnaces for tight chemical analytical control, vacuum-inert gas ladle furnace for further residual gas removal, de-oxidation, desulphurisation, inclusion decantation-removal , and inclusion shape-morphology control, continuous casting for improved solidification and reduced segregation, proper facilities for rolling and heat-treatment (refs. 2 and 3 and 6.)

Further work and enquiry is required to clarify these subjects. Comments and contributions more than welcome. The gauntlet has been thrown - the challenge is open!

Sources -Refs:

1. Australian based Azonanotechnology

2. Abstract Science 23 May 2008 Vol. 320. no. 5879, pp. 1057 - 1060 cf. support material

3. Supporting Online Material for Inverse Temperature Dependence of Toughness in an Ultra Fine Grain-Structure Steel - Science.

4 . MW. IoM3.

5. Industrial Experience LINK this blog and ref 5 below

6. MMFX