This award will support a three-day U.S.-Japan seminar entitled "Processing, Microstructure Development, and Properties of Advanced Ceramics and Their Composites." Advanced ceramics have unique properties, with potential applications ranging from heat engines (high-temperature structural ceramics) to electric power transmission (new superconducting ceramics with high transition temperatures). Their unique properties are not only due to their chemistry, bonding, and crystalline structure, but also to unique microstructures developed during their processing. However, variability in the production of these microstructures during processing leads to considerable variability in the resulting ceramic materials. The reliable utilization of structural and other advanced ceramics thus depends importantly on processing reliability. Recent advances in the processing of ceramics, primarily by materials scientists in the U.S. and Japan, have pointed to new directions for achieving reliable ceramics. These advances will be discussed at the seminar by leading scientists in this field in the two countries. The seminar will be held August 20-22, 1990, near Tokyo, Japan. Seminar co-organizers are Dr. Robert F. Davis, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University; Dr. Shiushichi Kimura, Department of Inorganic Materials, Tokyo Institute of Technology; and Dr. Takashi Yamaguchi, Department of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan. Specific topical areas to be addressed at the seminar are powder science; precursor chemistries; new consolidation methods; densification and microstructure control; microstructure and mechanics; and joining, machining, and deformation. The emphasis will be on exploring the interrelations of processing, microstructure, and properties of advanced ceramics and their composites. It is expected that the discussions will also identify new research directions aimed toward improving processing reliability.
