Refractory Ceramics: Alfred W. Allen Award

The Alfred W. Allen Award is an international award given by the American Ceramic Society’s Refractory Ceramics Division to the main author/two lead authors of the paper on refractory ceramics engineering with the highest degree of technical quality published in the last two years in any scientific journal worldwide. Hence, the selection is done from a pool of thousands of technical articles on refractory ceramics engineering published in the preceding two years in reputed journals such as Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Journal of European Ceramic Society, Ceramics International, Construction and Building Materials, Corrosion Science, Journal of Materials Science, Acta Materialia, Journal of Materials Science & Technology, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Minerals Engineering, Journal of Materials Research and Technology, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B, International Materials Reviews, International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology, Materials (MDPI), Ceramics (MDPI), Journal of Advanced Ceramics, Ironmaking & Steelmaking, Journal of Technical Association of Refractories-Japan, Metallurgical Research & Technology, Refractories Applications, Ceramic Bulletin, Proceedings of the Unified International Technical Conference on Refractories (UNITECR), Open Ceramics, Journal of Australian Ceramic Society, Journal of Asian Ceramic Societies, Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society, Transactions of Indian Ceramic Society, International Journal of Ceramic Engineering and Science, Materials at High Temperatures, Ceramica, Ceramics – Silikaty, Refractories and Industrial Ceramics, InterCeram: International Ceramic Review, China’s Refractories, High-Temperature Materials and Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society.

This award, to the best of our knowledge, is the most prestigious refractory publication award in the world. Although there are sometimes multiple authors in the awarded paper, typically the lead author is invited to receive the award and give a 1-hour lecture at the Annual Greater Missouri (St. Louis) Section/Refractory Ceramics Division Symposium on Refractories. Since the last 42 years, lead authors of only 22 exceptional refractory publications have been bestowed with this award. The Allen Award recipients are regarded internationally as the top refractory ceramic engineers. The previous winners of this award include the foremost experts in the field of refractory ceramics across the world, including:

• Victor Carlos Pandofelli: Professor at Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil, the highest cited refractory ceramics expert with 15,000+ citations, author of textbook on refractory concrete “Refractory castable engineering”, Editor-in-chief of Ceramics International and High-Temperature Materials journals.
• Christos Aneziris: Professor at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany, global expert on refractories with 9,000+ citations, author of book “Multifunctional Ceramic Filter Systems for Metal Melt Filtration,” President of German Ceramic Society, Editorial board member of journals: Refractories and Industrial Ceramics, Journal of Ceramic Science and Technology and China’s Refractories.
• Jacques Poirier: Emeritus Professor at University of Orleans, France and CEMHTI-CNRS, refractory expert with 2,700+ citations, Author of 3 textbooks on refractories as part of the FIRE Compendium Series: “Corrosion of Refractories: The Fundamentals,” “Corrosion of Refractories – Testing and Characterization Methods” and “Corrosion of Refractories – The impact of corrosion.”
• Jeffrey D. Smith: Professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology, most famous refractory Professor in the USA with 1,000+ citations, leader of Refractory Wear Mechanisms project of The Kent D. Peaslee Steel Manufacturing Research Center, author of the book “Fundamentals of Refractory Technology” and Editor of the book “Proceedings of the Unified International Technical Conference on Refractories (UNITECR 2013).”
• Michel Rigaud: Emeritus Professor at Polytechnique Montréal, Canada with 60 years refractory teaching experience, key founding member of Federation of International Refractory Research and Education (FIRE), authored book chapter in the popular refractory textbook “Refractories Handbook” edited by Charles Schacht and co-author of 3 textbooks on refractory corrosion as part of the FIRE Compendium Series.

 

Criteria Used to Nominate and Judge Participants:

The Alfred W. Allen Award is only awarded every two years. The selection is made from thousands of scientific articles from across the world by a panel of expert refractory ceramic engineers. This biennial award was established to honor Alfred W. Allen’s legacy as an educator, technical contributor, and supporter of the Refractory Ceramics Division. This award recognizes the best refractory paper selected from a pool of thousands of articles published in more than 38 scientific journals worldwide in the last two years. This award is not limited to ACerS members (10,000+ globally) and so is open to a much larger pool of refractory ceramic engineers globally and thus is incredibly difficult to be selected. The selection process is highly competitive, involving rigorous evaluation by a panel of experts who assess each submission based on originality, technical excellence, and potential impact on the field of refractory ceramics.

The Allen Award Committee consists of 3-5 committee members and a committee chair who are all well-respected refractory ceramics experts with several decades of experience in the field. The members are responsible for reviewing any significant technical literature in the refractory ceramics field in any journal (there are 38+ globally) for the last two years. Selected articles are submitted by each committee member for review. All committee members thoroughly read the submitted articles (ranging from 10-30 articles typically). The paper of the highest technical quality is chosen by the cumulative total of each committee member’s ranking of the articles. The winning articles had in the past and are expected to have in the future, a lasting effect on the refractory field in the form of new products, improved fundamental understanding, new test methods or new manufacturing techniques and formulation approaches. The award-winning article typically demonstrates at least a few or most of these characteristics:

• Very in-depth research on a refractory topic, especially those that develop a new finished product or raw material;
• Novel, yet industrially scalable refractory manufacturing technique or product testing method;
• Solved a long-standing issue faced by the manufacturing or end-user application site;
• Explained mechanism of a well-known, but less understood refractory behavior, especially one that causes the product to fail;

Publications from 2024 and 2025 issues are being evaluated in 2026 by the jury consisting of Dr. Somnath Mandal (Chair), Ms. Ruth Engel, Prof. Michel Rigaud, Dr. Gary Hallum and Dr. Charles Semler.

 

Past Award Winners