Course Description
Expand your Knowledge on CMCs and UHTCMCs
CMCs and UHTCMCs are key materials for aerospace and hypersonic applications, where components face extreme temperatures, thermal shocks, oxidation, and high mechanical stresses. This panel-style course provides a comprehensive overview of their processing, properties, characterization, and scale-up strategies. The first part covers CMC fundamentals, applications, and fabrication methods—including ceramic routes, polymer infiltration, chemical vapour infiltration, reactive melt infiltration, and hybrid approaches—along with structural, mechanical, and thermophysical characterization techniques.
The second part focuses on UHTCMCs, particularly carbon fibre reinforced systems based on transition metal carbides and borides. Processing–microstructure–property relationships, high-temperature mechanical behavior, thermal shock resistance, and oxidation performance will be discussed.
The final session addresses scale-up challenges, industrial processing routes, machining of complex shapes, advanced mechanical testing, and performance validation in relevant hypersonic environments, providing a perspective on the state-of-the-art and future directions for extreme environment applications.
Joining of Dissimilar Materials course description coming soon!
Course Format
4 hours of instruction per day | 8 hours of instruction total | Virtually from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. ET
Registration Pricing
- One day: $249
- Both days: $399
For more information about the ACerS–USACA Hypersonic Training Program, please visit ceramics.org/education/hypersonic-training-program.
Course Instructors
- Monica Ferraris
- Peter Tatarko
- Gerard L. Vignoles
- Diletta Sciti
- Antonio Vinci
Monica Ferraris
Monica Ferraris earned a master’s degree in solid state chemistry at the University of Torino, Italy, in 1985. She started her career with the Italian Telecom Research Laboratory in October 1985, then joined Fiat Research Centre (1991) and Politecnico di Torino (1992) where she is Full Professor of Science and Technology of Materials since 2005.
Monica has over 300 hundred peer-reviewed journal publications and 14 patents on ceramics and composites. She is Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics since 2014, member of the Italian Ceramic Society, the German Ceramic Society and the European Ceramic Society.
Monica has been an ACerS member since 1995 and affiliated with the Engineering Ceramics Division, she served as associate editor and co-editor in Chief of ACerS’s International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology, member of the Board of Directors of the American Ceramic Society (2019–22). She is co-chair of the Italy Chapter of The American Ceramic Society, 2017.
She has been awarded with the Global Star Award, from The American Ceramic Society (2011) and the ECD Bridge Building Award (2020) and she is Global Ambassador of The American Ceramic Society (since 2016). Monica has been an ACerS Fellow since October 2018 and served as ACerS President (2024–25).
Her current main area of activity is on joining, coating and mechanical testing of ceramics and CMC for several applications, including nuclear power plants. She is a lecturer of advanced materials for energy and of advanced materials for nuclear applications for master students in energy and nuclear engineering at Politecnico di Torino since 2019.
Gerard Louis Vignoles, Ph.D.
Gerard Louis Vignoles, professor of University of Bordeaux, is head of the ThermoStructural Composites Lab (LCTS, a joint unit with CNRS, CEA and the Safran Group) and of the CNRS National Research Group GDR “Ceramic-Matrix Composites: Characterization, Modeling, Conception (CMC)2”.
Graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris), he joined LCTS for his Ph.D. During 30+ years, he has developed and maintained there an activity covering image-based physicochemical modelling of the fabrication and behavior in use of thermo-structural composite materials. He currently focuses on broadening the scope of CMC applications and the variety of modeling methods needed to develop these materials.
Diletta Sciti, Ph.D.
Diletta Sciti is director of research at the National Research Council – Institute of Science, Technology, and Sustainability for Ceramics (CNR-ISSMC) in Faenza, Italy. Her research focuses on the fundamental correlations between processes, microstructures, and properties of structural and ultra-high temperature ceramics and composites for severe environments. She has coordinated major international projects, including an €8M EU Horizon 2020 program for aerospace materials.
Active in academia and scientific societies, she has authored around 270 publications and 10 patents and was named Fellow of the European Ceramic Society in 2023 and recipient of the 2025 JECS TRUST Award.
Antonio Vinci, Ph.D.
Antonio Vinci received his B.Sc. with honors in industrial chemistry at the University of Catania in 2013, and his M.Sc in industrial chemistry at the University of Bologna in 2015. He obtained his Ph.D. in materials science and technology at the University of Parma in 2019 and he is currently a researcher at the Institute of Science, Technology, and Sustainability for Ceramics in Faenza, Italy. He authored/co-authored over 40 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals and holds one patent on the fabrication of refractory composites. His research focuses on the processing and characterization of ultra-high-temperature ceramic matrix composites, particularly on processing techniques such as slurry infiltration, hot pressing, spark plasma sintering, reactive melt infiltration, and polymer infiltration and pyrolysis. Throughout his academic career, he won several JECS Trust awards and conducted research at various international laboratories, leading to several joint publications. He co-supervised one Ph.D. student and holds lectures on general and inorganic chemistry at the University of Bologna.
