MPI Newsletter - Spring 2009

Welcome

Welcome to the new MPI newsletter!  It has a new look and feel, but the contents are similar to past newsletters.  The eNewsletter format was decided by a majority vote (83%) of our members in a survey conducted last fall.  Each article presents a brief introduction or overview, followed by a link to the MPI website where the contents of the full article can be read.  At that point, you may navigate around the MPI website and check out the latest updates or you may return to the eNewsletter.  Copies of the eNewsletters will be archived on the MPI website for future reference.

This paperless newsletter is more environmentally friendly and produced at a lower cost than the previous paper versions.  In this digital age, the eNewsletter is also more user friendly allowing you to read it from anywhere in the world as long as there is email and internet access.  We hope you enjoy our new format for the MPI newsletter.  We encourage you to share the news of MPI by forwarding this issue to colleagues and associates.  As always, we are interested in your feedback, so please send us your opinion.

For a printable version of the newsletter, click here (722KB PDF).

From the Director

Due to the effect of the global economy, these past few months have been vexing on our consortium members.  The pains that the automotive companies are experiencing have certainly made an impact on MPI.  We lost some members to Chapter 11 while several members are not able to make their annual fee payments. Thus, the revenues we were projecting for this year will not materialize.  For the first time in over two decades, we are experiencing a shortfall.

We held special meetings of our Boards (CHTE, ACRC, etc.) and have agreed that we can manage the expected shortfall by reducing expenses in the short term, delaying one project for some time, etc.  However, for the long term we are implementing the following strategies:

  1. Strengthen the value proposition for MPI,
  2. Change the business model to one that does not rely on one industry (auto) but rather have an expanded base,
  3. Change the funding base from 70% industry/30% Federal Government to 50-60% Federal Government and 50-40% Industry,
  4. Explore the opportunities for Metal Processing in the renewable energy sector (turbines, batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaics, and energy efficiency).

With respect to strengthening the value proposition for MPI, we have written to our members and have offered them nine specific services that have a total MPI value exceeding $100K.  One service is a free consulting hotline.  This service will allow members to get timely help with factory floor problems without incurring additional cost.  The following consultants and their expertise are available for consultation:

As of this writing, we are pursuing funding revenues from several sources. These are:

I will certainly keep you informed as we are making progress on all these fronts. Re-engineering ourselves has been challenging, however it has also brought out the best in all of us, and the esprit de corps of the MPI team has never been stronger than during the last few months.

People

Nao Tsumagari

Nao Tsumagari, formerly of American Showa, has joined TRANE as a manager of reliability engineering. He would love to hear from his friends in the ACRC; write to him at nao.tsumagari@trane.com.

Brian Szymanowski

Brian Szymanowski is now working for Weil-McLain in Michigan City, Indiana in the company's product engineering department. He can be contacted at brian.szymanowski@weil-mclain.com.

Cecilia Borgonovo

During the past semester, Cecilia Borgonovo studied aluminum nanocomposite materials for high temperature applications under the direction of Diran Apelian. The project served as the final study for her advanced (5 years) bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Bologna, which sponsored the project.

Cecilia's research investigated the feasibility of an innovative manufacturing method 'ultrasonic cavitation-based solidification' when applied to the production of the A380 aluminum alloy reinforced with silicon carbide nanoparticles. The manufacturing process had been previously tested on the A356 alloy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with excellent results.

The research on the A380 alloy, a typical automotive aluminum alloy, was inspired by the compelling need to achieve superior high-temperature mechanical properties combined with top-level results in reducing weight. Indeed, with steadily rising long-term oil prices and increasingly stringent CO2 emissions' standards, diesel engines are likely to become more popular in North America and Asia, as they offer driving performance similar or even superior to those of large gasoline engines but with much lower fuel consumption.

The results highlighted a massive grain-refinement effect, coupled with an increase in hardness of approximately 20%. Moreover, hardness values along the radius were characterized by a homogeneous trend when compared to the A380 base alloy.

Cecilia completed her bachelor's degree and is continuing her studies for an advanced degree at WPI and the Metal Processing Institute as a student of Professor Apelian. Her work will focus on further pursuing the investigation of nanocomposite materials for automotive applications. A broad field will be covered, ranging from the optimization of the materials involved (base alloy and reinforcement) to the investigation of other innovative manufacturing processes or manufacturing tools (innovative mold design). In particular, the application of the Lorentz force to the melt could assure a homogeneous dispersion of the reinforcement phase in the base alloy.

Mei Yang

Mei Yang received a BS degree in Heat Treatment and Metallurgy and an MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Sichuan University, China.  In 2006, she also received an MS degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Penn State.  Currently, Mei is pursuing her PhD at WPI in Materials Science and Engineering with Professor Rick Sisson. Her CHTE project is Fundamentals, Modeling and Process Optimization of Ferritic Nitrocarburizing.  Her expertise is in thermodynamic modeling using Thermo-Calc and first-principles calculations using VASP.

Hao Yu

Hao Yu received a BS degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, in 2008. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD at WPI under the guidance of Professor Diran Apelian. Hao is a research assistant in ACRC working on Metal Matrix Nanocomposites for High Temperature Applications. His extracurricular interests include outdoor activities and soccer.

Jiu Zhao

Jiu Zhao received a BS degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Tongji University in Shanghai, China. Jiu is now pursuing her MS at WPI in Materials Science and Engineering with Professor Rick Sisson. Her CHTE project is Aging Cycle Optimization for Aluminum Alloys – Verification.

Defense Update

This spring, three students from MPI have completed all the requirements for their degrees. Please join us in congratulating Lance Wu (MS), Kimon Symeonidis (PhD), and Shimin Li (PhD) on their achievements. We wish them well in their future endeavors.

Leigh Duren

At the start of her second year at Nichols Portland, Leigh Duren moved into the role of materials lab supervisor, responsible for assuring the quality of the different powder blends used to make a variety of gerotor products.  Nichols Portland, a division of Parker Hannifin, designs and manufactures gerotors from powdered metal.  Leigh is enjoying the exposure to every step of the powder metal manufacturing process, including blending, sintering, and sizing.  Overall, the position has been a good fit and exposes her to many engineering challenges. She can be reached at leigh.duren@parker.com and welcomes communication with past MPI colleagues.

Olga (Olly) Karabelchtchikova

Congratulations to Olly Karabelchtchikova, a former PhD student of Professor Rick Sisson.  She was recently voted one of the Top 10 Women of Heat Treating in North America by readers of themonty.com, a website dedicated to the heat treat industry.  Olly is currently employed by Caterpillar.  We wish her continued success in her career.

Qingyan Xu

After spending a year with us, Qingyan Xu has returned to his home institution in China (Tsinghua University).  While at MPI, he worked on modeling of the continuous rheo-conversion process (CRP). Professor Xu will continue to be an ambassador at Tsinghua University. We look forward to future workshops and symposia, which will be organized by our two universities.

Brenner Exhibit

There is still time to view the Bernard Brenner Sculpture Collection, Weights & Shapes, currently on display in Gordon Library. In September 2008, WPI received a gift of 66 sculptures created by Brenner and from the artist's daughter, Rebecca Brenner. Diran Apelian, a former student and colleague of Brenner's, helped to select the pieces for the WPI collection. Some of the sculptures will remain on permanent display on the WPI campus, at the Metal Processing Institute in Washburn Shops.

Most of the pieces are of cast bronze or forged steel; the abstract and expressionistic pieces were created from the 1950s to the 1990s. Brenner completed more than two dozen public commissions, exhibited in over a hundred group shows, and presented more than 20 one-man shows. He often collaborated with other artists, and enjoyed a long working relationship with James Fuhrman.

Apelian to Chair Engineering Dean Search Committee

Diran Apelian has been appointed chair of the search committee for the newly created position of Gordon Dean of Engineering at WPI. This search is a most important one for WPI since it is a step in restructuring the university into schools and colleges.

Apelian Elected to National Academy of Engineering and Armenian Academy of Sciences

Diran Apelian has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He is honored for his many years of distinguished contributions to metal processing, engineering education, and university-industry collaboration. Election to the NAE is among the highest distinctions accorded to engineers. To read the full text of the WPI news release, see the official news release.

Diran Apelian has been elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. Established in 1943, the Academy promotes and carries out fundamental and applied research in several scientific fields and coordinates research under way throughout the nation. It also serves as a scientific consultant to the highest governing bodies of Armenia.

Apelian Travels for TMS Material Advantage

Diran Apelian travelled to universities in North America to generate excitement and show support for TMS' student organization, Material Advantage. He presented a series of lectures and met with materials science students from the University of Alberta, British Columbia, the University of Birmingham, Alabama, and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. Their keen interest and natural exuberance was refreshing. There are over eighty student chapters of Material Advantage around the world. The April edition of JOM published a related article, A visit from the President: "A Highlight of the Academic Semester". To read a copy of the article, see the official release.

ACRC

Meetings

Over 40 members of ACRC participated in the Fall Consortium meeting held at WPI on December 2-3, 2008. Given the economic downturn, we were pleasantly surprised with the great turnout. The meeting was very productive and resulted in the selection of projects aligned with the ACRC Road Map. General minutes of the ACRC Fall meeting can be viewed here.

Weiss Selected Chair of ACRC

David Weiss of ECK Industries was named chair of the ACRC Steering Committee, effective January 1, 2009. He follows Steve Udvardy, who has done an outstanding job in guiding the direction of the ACRC during the last two years. We are the beneficiaries of great leadership at ACRC and the legacy continues on with Dave.

New Members Appointed to Steering Committee

At the Fall Meeting of the ACRC, five members were appointed to serve on the Steering Committee for a period of two years, effective January 1, 2009. They are Pat Pattabiraman (Honeywell), Fred Major (Rio Tinto), Jose Talamantes (NEMAK), Kevin Anderson (Mercury Marine), and Herb Doty (General Motors). Foseco will continue for another term.

ACRC Steering Committee Selects Projects

Several of the current ACRC-funded research projects are concluding this year, and replacement projects were selected during the December 2008 meeting of the ACRC Steering Committee. Based on ACRC criteria and considering the Four Axes as recommended in the ACRC Road Map, two projects were selected.

  1. Ultra-Strong Cast Aluminum Nano-composites.

    J. Jorstad and A. Franke will chair the focus group for this project.


    The emphasis of this project will be to introduce sub-micron size second phases, such as carbon or metal carbide particles, into aluminum alloys. This will significantly improve the properties of castings compared to property values achievable in current alloy systems.

  2. Distortion and Residual Stress in Cast Aluminum Components – Phase 2

    P. Crepeau and J. Talamantes will chair the focus group for this project.


    An ongoing ACRC project aims to develop a computer model that casters can use to predict the distortion and residual stresses that are caused by heat treatment. Currently, a rather simple model is being developed and tested. The model uses ABAQUS and a specially developed database that includes the necessary heat transfer coefficients and mechanical properties. The model requires three inputs: the quenching heat transfer coefficient, the initial conditions, and the boundary conditions on the casting. It produces three outputs at each node: the geometric distortion, the magnitude and type of residual stresses, and the thermal history caused by the quenching step.

    The new project will continue to explore more fully the issues researched in the ongoing project as they apply to industrial parts, specifically cylinder heads. One of the issues that the project should resolve is whether reducing residual stresses by substituting water quenching with air quenching offsets the reduction in mechanical properties caused by the slack quench. It is anticipated that the research team will develop tools for making this determination beyond the subject parts. Also within the context of this project is predicting the response of the casting to the aging step of the precipitation hardening heat treatment, i.e., developing a module and database for predicting the resultant room temperature mechanical properties at each point in the casting after a complete T6 heat treatment.

ACRC 2009 Award Recipients

The Ray W. Witt Award will be presented to David Weiss, vice president of sales and engineering at ECK Industries, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The Witt Award recognizes individuals who have broadened the technology base and inspired others to advance the industry through technical achievement. When asked which of his accomplishments gave him the most satisfaction he replied, "I am really proud of the cooperative work that I have done with our customers to develop and use high performance aluminum alloys, such as the 200 series alloys and metal matrix composites. Working outside of everyone's comfort zone has led to some unique castings for applications that would be impossible in some of the common alloys". Looking forward, Weiss said he would like to be a part of what he hopes to be a revolution in casting alloys and clean metal technology. "I think it is possible, in the next 10 years, with the right alloys and the right casting practices, to routinely produce affordable aluminum castings having tensile strengths in excess of 100 KSI".

Hubert Koch, head of research and development at TRIMET ALUMINIUM AG, Essen, Germany, will be awarded the Merton C. Flemings Award for contributing to the understanding of solidification processing fundamentals as applied commercially in the foundry industry. When asked about his accomplishments, he replied, "I'm proud to participate in the development of low-iron, high-pressure die casting alloys and, very important to bring these alloys [silafont, magsimal, castasil, trimal] into applications." Koch says his next challenge is to develop alloys that do not need to be heat treated for permanent mold applications and for crash relevant parts in high pressure die casting. He feels grain refinement has to be improved to offer a better understanding of modification in Al-Si-type of alloys.

Recruiting in Europe

Diran Apelian and Claudio Mus recently visited several companies in Europe spreading the word about ACRC. Their successful trip included visits and tours of Audi, Fiat, and Ferrari. They also visited the management of St. Jean Industries and gave an overview of current MPI projects. Claudio is championing the activities for MPI across Europe and has been most effective as our European liaison.

Jensen Fund Gift

The Jensen Family Charitable Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts has made a gift to MPI to fund a summer internship. The intent of the gift is to provide young men and women from the United States educational opportunities in the exciting world of metal processing, as well as to provide them with opportunities to pursue careers in the field.

Frank Jensen is former owner of Palmer Foundry and has been a longtime supporter of the ACRC. He and his wife, Carol, live in Florida and travel to Massachusetts on a regular basis to visit their grandchildren. Their daughter, Lori, completed her Master's thesis at ACRC with Diran Apelian. Her work on the Reduced Pressure Test (RPT) led to the adoption of RPT procedures by AFS as the standard for the industry.

New Instron Impact Machine

A new Instron SI-1C3 impact machine is being installed in the ACRC lab. This machine was purchased for measuring the impact toughness (absorbed energy) of aluminum die casting alloys for the CIDR project. Moreover, it has up to a 300 ft-lb capacity to perform the impact tests for most of the metallic materials.

Generally, die castings have thin walls with a dense and strong surface layer. Specimen for die casting alloys should have a corresponding small cross section for testing at a cast-to-size condition with no notch. The standard specimen specified in ASTM E23 is a notched square bar with a cross section of 10x10 mm. This specimen is not suitable for aluminum die castings. We chose to use the 1993 version of the Charpy (and current Izod) test specimen, which has a tapered as-cast cross section of 6.35x6.35 mm. However, because of the size, shape, and lower absorbed energy of our specimen, a machine suitable for our use was not available from the sources we searched.

After consultation with product engineers from Instron, the SI-1C3 impact machine was finally selected as it could be modified to fit the specimen requirements of the CIDR project. The modification made to the SI-1C3 impact machine allows a lower test limit of 1 ft-lb (calculated as 0.95 ft-lb) with the resolution of 0.04 ft-lb (calculated as 0.038 ft-lb), which are suitable for CIDR project requirements and for the aluminum and magnesium die casting alloys. Both the Charpy and Izod tests will be executed. The Charpy test will be also executed at elevated temperatures.

WPI to Host 4th Annual ASM Materials Camp New England

On May 11, WPI will host the 4th Annual ASM Materials Camp New England for high school sophomores and juniors from the New England region, free of charge. It offers hands-on experience in the materials sciences and insight into the impact that materials have in our modern life. In the past, the camp has been hugely successful with the students, due to a very large contingent of volunteers from industry who bring their expertise and enthusiasm to campus to share with these young people. The ASM Materials Camp is organized into learning stations meant to provide fast paced and multi-faceted exposure to materials. In the past, these stations have included work in casting, heat treatment, microstructures, materials identification, polymers, and shape memory alloys.

CHTE

Meetings

The Fall Meeting of the CHTE Consortium was held at WPI on October 28, 2008. An excellent turnout fostered members to network with one another during the breaks, reception, and dinner. Some newsworthy notes from the meeting are: Ranajit Ghosh (Air Products) and Wei-Tsu Wu (SFTC) have been appointed to the Board; a new CHTE award will be presented at the Spring meeting to an individual to recognize service, technical contribution, and industrial leadership; and two new projects were selected to start right before spring.

The membership thanks Geoffrey Somary of IPSEN for his leadership in organizing the Project Steering Committee (PSC) and for his work in enhancing the process and procedures we used to select the projects in accordance to CHTE's Mission and Bylaws.

In addition to the CHTE projects, the faculty is arduously pursuing opportunities to leverage the CHTE portfolio with federal funds that support energy reduction, process efficiencies, as well as using thermal processing for industrial segments other than automotive and aerospace.

General Minutes of the CHTE Fall meeting can be viewed here.

New CHTE Award

Beginning this year, the CHTE Distinguished Service Award is presented to honor an individual who, in the judgment of the CHTE Board, has made significant, commendable, and long-standing contributions to the promotion of CHTE. Criteria include an active CHTE membership in good standing for a minimum of three years and exceptional contributions to CHTE. The inaugural recipient of the 2009 CHTE Distinguished Service Award is Bill Bernard, the first member of CHTE. Bill was the first Chair of the Board of Directors and has been one of CHTE's most ardent supporters. He has been an ambassador for CHTE both through the industrial sector and his professional and trade organizations. Congratulations to Bill and the Surface Combustion team.

CHTE Board Selects Two New Projects

Since it's last meeting, the CHTE Board and the Project Steering Committee (PSC) have been hard at work deliberating and deciding on our new projects. At the CHTE Board Fall meeting, Michael Pershing for the PSC gave a brief summary of the criteria used for evaluating the project proposals that were submitted.

Based on the six criteria established, all proposals were rated by each member of the PSC. The ratings showed one clear winner and two other proposals closely tied. The winner was Adaptation of Vacuum Furnace Equipment and Procedures for High Pressure Hydrogen Quenching. The two tied projects were Carbonitriding Modeling Fundamentals and Nitriding Process Optimization, which will be combined into one project. We will do the Carbonitriding first, followed by the Nitriding. The combined project will be decoupled and completed in 2.5+ years.

  1. High Pressure Hydrogen Quenching

    In the first phase of this CHTE project, the research team will evaluate the effectiveness of High Pressure Hydrogen Quenching and compare the result to that of oil quenching. Through a comprehensive literature review, modeling and simulation, and experimental test, the study will focus on the effective heat transfer coefficient and part distortion, as well as the safety and cost aspects of the technology.

  2. Carbonitriding and Subcritical/Ferritic Nitrocarburizing

    Carbonitriding (in the austenite phase region) and subcritical/ferritic nitrocarburizing are established and well used industrial processes. However, the need exists for an improved fundamental understanding of the physics of these processes in terms of carbon and nitrogen adsorption, absorption, diffusion and hardening. A user-friendly computational model is also needed to determine the key process parameters to meet the customer's specifications. In addition, a model-based optimization process is needed to determine the process parameters and the process control strategy for reduced cycle times and costs. This CHTE project will develop and verify a user-friendly model for each process (carbonitriding and subcritical/ferritic nitrocarburizing).

CHTE Acquires Fisher Sigma Scope Electrical Conductivity Meter

CHTE has acquired a Fisher Sigma Scope Electrical Conductivity Meter, designed to measure the electrical conductivity of non-ferrous metals. In age-hardenable Aluminum alloys, the electrical conductivity is directly related to the size and number density of the coherent precipitates. Therefore, the conductivity can be experimentally calibrated with the hardness and other mechanical properties. This meter has been used for Jominy End Quench experiments in several aluminum alloys. The photo below shows the meter in use by CHTE students, Sidath Wijesooriya, Yuan Xu, and Jiu Zhao (foreground to background).

SFTC to Commercialize CHTE Software

Scientific Forming Technology Corporation (SFTC) has entered into an agreement to commercialize, market, and continue development of the CHTE software, CHT-bf, CHT-cf, and CHT-q/t. To read the full article, see the official release.

Other Centers

This section is devoted to news of the CIS, PMRC, and Sloan centers. In this issue, the CIS center is featured with two articles: Promising Results for High Resolution Prostate Imaging and Electric Imaging of Ceramic Materials.

Promising Results for High Resolution Prostate Imaging

Reinhold Ludwig continues his sabbatical leave in industry, where he presently develops biomedical instrumentation. Based on his long-term research interest in sensing and imaging devices, he recently finalized a new radio-frequency coil for magnetic resonance imaging of the prostate. This research addresses a pressing problem: in the United States alone, approximately one in six men will be afflicted with prostate cancer in his lifetime, and incidence is expected to increase dramatically with the rapidly aging Baby Boomers. Clearly, more successful imaging techniques, specifically as related to magnetic resonance imaging, could help improve prostate cancer diagnosis.

After extensive computational modeling with a custom-developed method of moment tools, Ludwig completed the first prototype in January and subjected it to extensive testing on the bench.

In mid-February, the prototype was placed on a patient table and interfaced to a 1.5 Tesla clinical MRI scanner (Siemens 1.5T Avanto) at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The resulting images obtained from a 28 cm diameter spherical phantom were very encouraging, pointing to a high-image uniformity and signal-to-noise ratio over a wide field-of-view.

Prototype prostate imaging coil mounted on a patient table of a 1.5 Telsa commercial magnetic resonance scanner. The images on the right denote axial (top) and sagittal (bottom) views of a phantom.

A week later, and at a different facility, Ludwig was able to test the coil prototype on a volunteer-himself.  It was gratifying to observe that the coil performed well.  Obviously, there are many more design iterations required that will have to emphasize electrical refinements, but also address issues such as rapid installation and patient comfort.  Nonetheless, Ludwig is convinced that his prototype passed a major milestone, which should bode well for future high-resolution prostate imaging.

First prostate image obtained from a volunteer. For this image, a gradient pulse echo sequence was run on a Siemens 1,5T MRI machine with the following system parameters: TR= 500 ms, TE= 10 ms, NEX= 1, matrix = 256x256, flip angle= 90, and slice thickness= 2 mm.

Electric Imaging of Ceramic Materials

Through support provided by US Synthetic (USS), the CIS team finalized and successfully tested with controlled samples a general-purpose electrostatic tester capable of imaging ceramic materials. Unlike existing nondestructive and biomedical imaging technology, CIS succeeded in developing a full 3D, layer-by-layer tomographic conductivity reconstruction system based on only a single surface measurement accessed via a multi-pin sensor.

Details of the CIS Instrument

The sensor contacting the sample under test was built using spring-loaded pins that are arranged in the tightest formation with a minimum distance between probes of 0.050". The nominal arrangement and probe numbering is shown in Figure 1 (a), while the physical implementation of this sensor can be seen in Figure 1 (b).

Figure 1: Sensor probe arrangement and physical implementation.

To assure repeatable placement of the parts under test in contact with the sensor probes, a three-piece plastic sample holder was constructed, shown in Figure 2 (a) and (b). The middle plastic part (2) has a cavity for holding the sample (7). The sample is centered and held in place by a soft O-ring (5) that is installed in a groove encircling the sample. This O-ring allows turning the part holder upside-down to place the part on top of the spring-loaded pins (6). The majority of the pins themselves are installed in a plastic base (3) through 121 holes drilled. The sensor assembly is completed by a third plastic piece (1) carrying the two reference pins that must contact the sample on the metal side. The three primary sample holder components (1, 2, and 3) are kept aligned by two dowel pins (4). The dowel pins are currently press-fitted into the plastic piece (2) and slide freely though pieces (1) and (3).

Figure 2: Sample holder assembly and its cross-section.

The entire portable instrument and its components are depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Fully assembled electrostatic measurement instrument.

The main system components as labeled in Figure 3 are:

  1. Data acquisition module connected to the PC through an USB port.
  2. Custom electronics module, implementing the custom hardware shown in Figure 2.
  3. External power supply module for the custom electronics. It was found that including the power supply inside the custom electronics enclosure coupled too much noise into the sensitive analog signal path.

Resulting Predictions

In a matter of seconds, the instrument converts electric sensor measurements into a 3D electric conductivity distribution that subsequently can be plotted as 2D slices at various depths below the sample surface. Figure 4 shows, on a logarithmic color scale, the conductivity predictions at 0.28mm, 0.84mm, 1.40mm, 1.96mm, and 2.51mm for four controlled industrial diamond samples fused on a tungsten substrate.

Figure 4: Conductivity (in S/m) reconstruction at 5 depth levels for four controlled industrial diamond samples. The instrument displays distinct spatial conductivity patterns that change as a function of depth.

This powerful data acquisition and processing instrument is based on electrostatic imaging technology that was patented by MPI in 2001. The presently developed prototype offers reliable and rapid data processing and analysis of electric conductivity distributions at minimal cost.

Calendar and Reminders

MPI Meeting Calendar

Related Meetings and Conferences

Notices

We are always glad to receive items of interest to MPI News readers. Please send articles for the Fall 2009 newsletter to Renee at rbrodeur@wpi.edu.

From the MPI Accountant

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Last modified: May 13, 2009 09:16:03