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[image above: Ross Brindle of Nexight Group facilitates a technology roadmapping discussion. Credit: ACerS]

Nobody officially declared this to be “Glass Week,” but when five events significant to the glass manufacturing community occur in a compressed timeframe—and they coincide with the anniversary of Donald Stookey’s passing—it is tantamount to a cosmic proclamation of Glass Week. Mere mortals dare not argue! Consider the following:

One.

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Manoj Choudhary. Credit: ICG

Manoj Choudhary assumed presidency of the International Commission on Glass. Choudhary, a leading Owens Corning glass scientist and ACerS Fellow will lead this auspicious international body of glass scientists for the next three years and will be at the center of planning for the International Congress on Glass in Boston, Mass., in 2019.

Choudhary will be unusually busy for the next three years—he also joined the ACerS Board of Directors for a three-year term that began with the Annual Meeting in October. Choudhary says, “I am grateful to the Glass and Optical Materials Division and The American Ceramic Society for the strong support and encouragement I have always received from my home society, and I look forward to strengthening the already close ties between GOMD and ICG.”

Two.

ACerS International Journal of Applied Glass Science editors announced that Issue 3 (September 2015) and Issue 4 (December 2015) will be open access—free—for the remainder of 2015 as part of their celebration of the United Nations International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies. IYL has provided the glass community the opportunity to “shine a light” on the many ways glass makes light useful with optical fibers, prisms, optics, and even windows. According to editor David Pye, these issues have as a theme “Glass and Light,” and emphasize new developments.

Three.

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Prioritizing advanced manufacturing needs at FGMIC workshop. Credit: ACerS

The Functional Glass Manufacturing Innovation Consortium (FGMIC) held its first workshop yesterday and today in Columbus, Ohio. The FGMIC is funded by the NIST Advanced Manufacturing Technology program to conduct technology roadmapping and planning for a sustained consortium. The workshop brought together 23 experts, including manufacturers, national labs, academia, end users, and equipment providers. In the workshop, participants identified technical and nontechnical gaps, barriers, and solutions, and took a first stab at prioritizing them.

A second workshop in May 2016 will bring together a different group of experts for a similar exercise, but with the expectation of building on the inputs from this week. The end product will be an advanced manufacturing technology roadmap for the FGMIC to use to conduct its activities.

Four.

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Conference on Glass Problems. Credit: ACerS

The 76th Conference on Glass Problems (GPC) took place earlier this week. Organized by the Glass Manufacturing Industry Council, more than 300 glass manufacturers came together in Columbus, Ohio, to share problems—and solutions—related to melting, furnace design, burners, emissions, forming, quality, and more.

Five.

Lastly (only because it actually occurred a few weeks ago), a video interview with ACerS Fello John Mauro of Corning Incorporated was posted on Frontiers In, a web-based journal. In the interview, Mauro tells the audience how he discovered glass at age six and goes on to describe topological constraint theory and how it applies to glass structure in ways that a nonexpert can understand. It still helps to be somewhat technically literate, but you will come away from this four minutes with a better understanding of the challenges inherent to codifying amorphous structures—and you will be thinking about the six-year olds in your life, too!

 

It was a very good week!

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