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Happy New Year from ASM International! We are truly
excited about the year ahead and hope you are too.
With the economy picking up, China doing away with its
quotas on rare earths, and recent manufacturing reports
posting positive numbers, 2015 is already shaping up to
be a solid year. Of course, nothing is guaranteed and we
are always skating on the edge of precariousness with
pockets of war and unrest around the world. But relatively speaking, things
seem to be on a positive trend at least in the world of manufacturing and
materials science.
Looking back over the past year, materials engineering was constantly
making headlines. From Tesla Motors’ “gigafactory” for lithium-ion batteries
(construction began last summer in Nevada) to 3D printing of everything
from jet engine parts to human tissue, materials were all over the news. We
continue to watch aluminummake gains in the automotive industry with
Ford’s F-150 and the newly announced Jaguar XE, and carbon fiber is making
inroads as well, for example in BMW’s i3 electric vehicle. Even more prom-
ising for carbon fiber adoption are the changes taking
place in aerospace designs. Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner
sports an airframe made of nearly half carbon fiber
reinforced plastic and other composites, the Airbus A350
XWB will include fuselage and wings made of carbon fi-
ber composites, and Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter will employ 6600 kg of carbon fiber composites per platform. All in
all, use of carbon fibers in industrial applications is forecast to rise 12.6% per
year through 2018, according to research firm IHS Chemical.
Amazing materials innovations are also taking place in the medical realm.
Perhaps among the most promising and interesting developments are new
bioabsorbable materials. For example, researchers at Fraunhofer Institute,
Germany, are working on metal-ceramic composite suture anchors that “melt
away” inside the body after their work is done. The team is using powder
injection molding to make the tiny anchors out of a mix of 60% iron alloy and
40% beta-tricalcium phosphate ceramic. The iron corrodes slowly to ensure
mechanical strength while the ceramic decomposes quickly and stimulates
bone growth to help the body accept the implant. Lab testing is now under-
way to monitor use and degradation in the human body.
In other news closer to home, ASM has ambitious plans in place for 2015.
You’ve probably noticed our freshly redesigned magazine and we hope you
like it! Our goal with the new design is to lend a fresher, more modern look
and feel to your favorite materials science news source, but to keep offering
the same high quality, trusted technical content. Feel free to let us know how
we’re doing and if you have any suggestions. For a look ahead at overall So-
ciety goals, be sure to read our annual Progress Report included in this issue.
We wish you all a fantastic 2015!
ASM International
9639 Kinsman Road, Materials Park, OH 44073
Tel: 440.338.5151 • Fax: 440.338.4634
Frances Richards,Senior Editor
Julie Lucko, Editor
Barbara L. Brody,Art Director
Annie Beck,Production Manager
Press Release Editor
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Yu-Ping Yang,Chair, EWI
Jaimie Tiley,Vice Chair, U.S. Air Force
Research Lab
Mario Epler, Past Chair, Carpenter
Technology Corp.
Craig Clauser, Board Liaison
Kathryn Dannemann, Board Liaison
Laura Addessio,PCC Structurals Inc.
Arvind Agarwal, Florida International
University
Gerald Bruck, Siemens Westinghouse
Power Corp.
Steven Claves, Alcoa Inc.
Adam Farrow, Los Alamos National Lab
Nia Harrison,Ford Motor Co.
Alan Luo, The Ohio State University
Roger Narayan, UNC-NCSU
Somuri Prasad, Sandia National Lab
Fei Ren,Temple University
Michael Rigsbee, North Carolina State
University
Kumar Sridharan, University of Wisconsin
ASMBOARDOF TRUSTEES
Sunniva R. Collins, President
Jon D. Tirpak, Vice President
Craig D. Clauser, Treasurer
C. Ravi Ravindran, Immediate Past President
Iver Anderson
Kathryn Dannemann
Mitchell Dorfman
James C. Foley
Jacqueline M. Earle
John R. Keough
Zi-Kui Liu
Tirumalai S. Sudarshan
David B. Williams
Terry F. Mosier,Secretary and
InterimManaging Director
STUDENT BOARDMEMBERS
Virginia K. Judge, Anthony Lombardi,
Myrissa N. Maxfield
Individual readers of Advanced Materials & Processes may,
without charge, make single copies of pages therefrom for per-
sonal or archival use, or may freely make such copies in such
numbers as are deemed useful for educational or research
purposes and are not for sale or resale. Permission is granted
to cite or quote fromarticles herein, provided customary
acknowledgment of the authors and source is made.
A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5
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“The true sign of
intelligence is not
knowledge but
imagination.”
— Albert Einstein
IMAGININGAHAPPY AND
PROSPEROUSNEWYEAR