0925 ctt short course featureInstructor Arun Varshneya teaches ACerS’ popular Fundamentals of Glass Science and Technology short course. (Credit: AcerS.)

If you’ve attended any ACerS meeting, you know the focus is always on learning. From lectures to poster sessions to conference tracks and even networking events, attendees will be fully immersed in the topic at hand.

Most conferences also include separate short courses, and MS&T’13, slated for Oct. 26–31 in Montreal, is no exception. Unlike conference tracks, which often are deep dives into a specific topic, ACerS short courses aim to provide a basic foundation of knowledge to students who may not be experts in the subject area. This year ACerS is bookending MS&T with three short courses, including a new course covering the basics of electroceramic materials.

Glass

Before the conference, the popular Fundamentals of Glass Science and Technology course will be offered on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 26 and 27. Instructor Arun K. Varshneya, president of  Saxon Glass Technologies and professor emeritus of glass science and engineering at Alfred University, covers basic glass science and technology in a way that even less-technical attendees will find useful and enlightening. Attendees will learn about commercial oxide glass families, their compositions, and their key properties; understand the physical relationship of glasses to liquids and solids; gain a general idea of key physical and chemical properties that lead to common applications; and understand the basics of melting, forming, and annealing for common commercial glasses.

Past attendees have rated this course very highly, giving an average overall rating of 4.62 out of 5 in a survey following the most recent course.  

Sintering

Also highly rated by attendees with an average rating of 4.4 out of 5, the short course Sintering of Ceramics will be held Thursday and Friday, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. It is taught by Mohamed Rahaman, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Center for Bone and Tissue Repair and Regeneration at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

This course reviews the basics of sintering and covers concepts of microstructure control and development. Course attendees will learn to sinter to specified target microstructures, understand sintering challenges, and take practical steps to solve sintering problems. Emphasizing practical information and new technologies, the course also includes case studies covering sintering of nanoceramics, solid-oxide fuel cell systems, ceramic-matrix composites, non-oxide ceramics, and ultra-high temperature materials.

Electroceramics

New at MS&T is the one-day course Electroceramics Basics: Applications and Devices. On Thursday Oct. 31, instructor R.K. Pandey, Ingram Professor of engineering at Texas State University, will cover how advances in multifunctional oxides, multiferroics, and other materials have made electroceramics a key component of microelectronics and other systems. Although not a prerequisite, exposure to undergraduate-level ceramic, materials, chemical, or electrical engineering courses or physics would be helpful to attendees.

The course reviews and emphasizes practical applications of current electroceramics technology, and covers potential innovations and their commercial prospects. Topics include an introduction to the materials and the interacting forces that give them their unique properties, materials processing and characterization, and physics and applications for multiferroic, nonlinear dielectric magnetic materials, oxide-based hybrid structures for novel microelectronic devices, and detectors and sensors.

Openings remain for all three courses, but you need to hurry to take advantage of the best deals—earlybird registration ends Friday Sept. 27.

Author

Jim Destfani

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