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Katherine Faber, president of the 4th International Congress on Ceramics, on “Shaping the Future of Ceramics.” Credit: ACerS.

I really enjoy going to meetings. The big, conference kind, that is — not so much the day-to-day inhouse kind!

Conferences give me the chance to follow the buzz: the who, what, where and how of ceramic technology. I get the technical details from the sessions, but I get the most out talking to meeting the attendees about their work, what trends they are seeing, who they are collaborating with, what problems they are encountering, etc.

There is just no substitute for the “live action” that happens at a meeting. So, I’m really looking forward to the 4th International Congress on Ceramics this July in Chicago.

International Ceramic Federation convenes these international congresses biennially in cooperation with several international societies. ACerS is the host and organizing society of this fourth congress. ACerS had the privilege of hosting and organizing the first ICC in Toronto in 2006 and is very pleased to reprise the role.

The theme of this congress is “Shaping the Future of Ceramics,” and as you might expect, this refers not just to processing and properties, but also to the business of ceramic science, engineering, product development and manufacturing.

Katherine Faber, president of the ICC4 says the meeting is “designed to bring together international leaders in business and research to investigate new opportunities and emerging opportunities in terms of ceramic design and ceramic manufacturing.”

Indeed, the meeting is organized into themes that reflect this goal: Aerospace; Aerospace; Biology and Medicine; Electro-, Magnetic-, Optical-Ceramics and Devices; Environment, Energy and Transportation; Infrastructure; Nanostructured Ceramics; Security and Strategic Materials; and Workforce Development. Over 600 international attendees representing business, academia and government are expected.

The technical program, Faber says, “is geared toward emerging opportunities in energy, health, transportation and aerospace. We’ll also hear about nanotechnology and nanodevices, as well as other electrical, optical and magnetic materials.”

It seems natural, then, that this year ACerS’s Ceramic Leadership Summit be incorporated into ICC4. The CLS, now in its third year, is a forum for exploring and addressing the business issues and challenges facing the ceramics and glass industries, in both realms of established industries and emerging technologies.

Faber notes, that the combined meeting is an opportunity to bring together those “creating the knowledge and doing the innovating,” to the mutual benefit of all.

There is a lot more going on—an innovative poster session, a short course on sintering, keynote and plenary talks—all in the pleasant setting of downtown Chicago. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing with you a sampling of the talks that are scheduled for ICC4 and CLS and other updates as we learn about them.

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The Interactive Technology Forum gives researchers creative ways to present their work.

Want your research to be highly visible and remembered long after the conference ends?

Then, think about presenting your research and technology in a new and innovative approach to poster sessions—the Interactive Technology Forum—at ICC4.

“The ICC Interactive Technology Forum will be much more than a 21st Century poster session. With LCD displays, tablets, and laptops for displaying simulations and 3D visualizations, we expect to provide a richer experience for presenters and participants alike,” says Katherine Faber, meeting organizer and professor at Northwestern University.

Soon to be gone are the days of plain posters tacked up on bulletin boards. The wave of the future will be interactive multimedia presentations. Companies and institutions already use a technology-incorporated format for presentations. More and more, traditional presentations are morphing into a multi-media enriched format with a hands-on approach.

Chris Dosch, materials scientist at GE Global research, explains how multimedia presentations were a success at this year’s (internal) GE TechFest.

“In order to showcase the work being done here at GE’s Global Research Center in a more creative and contemporary way, traditional poster presentations were discouraged this year at our internal TechFest. It was an overwhelming success. The key was getting viewers to interact with your display. Instead of wandering around an exhibit hall skimming posters, people were fully engaged in the presentations. In all presentations, the increased engagement resulted in more interest/understanding which in turn led to many fruitful discussions which may not have occurred if a poster on the same topic had not peaked someone’s interest as they walked past.”

Not everyone has used this form of poster presentation but many are excited about trying it out.

“If the general audience (at ICC4) is anything like me, they don’t read the poster top-down from the abstract to the conclusions. The interactive technology presentations give the presenter the opportunity to lead the discussion by controlling the sequence of the delivery and therefore receive more focused feedback from their audience,” says Michelene Hall, founder, Excelerant Ceramics.

To take part in this innovative forum, submit your abstract by Jan. 17, 2012. For more information on the Interactive Technology Forum, visit the ICC4 homepage.

The International Congress on Ceramics will be held July 15-19, 2012 in Chicago. To learn more about this dynamic meeting, visit the ICC4 homepage

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Micrographs of two single-phase FeTiO5 laminates with textured and untextured layers. Image (a), top, shows crack bifurcation within the textured layers. Image (b) shows tunnel cracks in the textured layer. Source: International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology

The current issue of the International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology reports on a Northwestern University group’s work related to using improved gelcasting techniques that allow new possibilities for manufacturing of certain laminates.

Gelcasting, a technique perfected at the Oak Ridge National Lab, is a method used to create large, near-net-shape ceramic and metal components with complex shapes from low-viscosity slurries composed of powders suspended in a liquid binder system. The components begin to be solidified when a chemical initiator is added to the slurry. This starts the formation of a polymer gel network. The slurry is quickly poured into a molds and allowed to dry. The additives and binders are burned out before sintering.

The team of Noah Shanti, David Hovis, Michelle Seitz, John Montgomery, Donald Baskin and Katherine Faber describe the use of more flexible gelcasting system – thermoreversible gelcasting – that allows more opportunities to manipulate the materials during the molding stage, something they found useful, for example, in toughening laminates.

The advantage of TRG over traditional gelcasting is that it is not time constrained (as long as the slurry temperature is kept above the transition temperature). Lamination is possible during gelcasting by adding successive layers of slurries selected because the properties and interfaces being sought. The teams describes concepts of tailoring the porosity and texture of the layers to, for example, strengthen the final laminate material by crack deflection, crack bifurcation and taking advantage of residual compressive stresses.

In one case, they describe the using the enhanced manipulation time to introduce a magnetic field to the materials during casting. The magnetic field aligns ceramic particles and allows the development of highly textured microstructures. The would not be possible using traditional gelcasting techniques because of the relatively brief window of opportunity before solidification begins.

The groups notes that while the use of TRG requires a good understanding of polymer chemistry, physics, and slurry rheology, not to mention drying and sintering kinetics, they predict the technique will find much use in applications ranging from strong bioceramic materials to solid oxide fuel cells.

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