A planning activity will be initiated to determine the feasibility of establishing a Process Modeling Center at MIT. Its principal mission will be to develop mathematical models describing materials processing operations involving materials in the gaseous and molten state and including phase transitions such as solidification and vapor deposition. This work would have a close interface with solid state (i.e., deformation processing) efforts but would not emphasize these aspects of the materials processing field. The principal industrial customers for this work would include both the traditional commodity-type producers, such as steel, aluminum, and copper; and new technologies, such as ceramics composites and electronic materials. As part of this planning, co-ordination with Lehigh University (covering the areas of mathematical modeling of shaping and deforming of solid materials) will be explored to determine the possibility of establishing a joint center researching mathematical modeling of materials during gaseous, liquid, and solid phases.
