Old Events Archive

• May 23rd & 24th, 2004
• Materials for Extreme Environments
• GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY

• May 24th & 25th, 2004
• Smart and Functional Materials
• GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY

• Tuesday April 20, 2004
• 580 Broadway, Albany
• www.blaschceramics.com
• 5:00 pm Tour followed by dinner at the Albany Pump Station
• Founded in 1979, Blasch Precision Ceramics provides customized, solutions for various chemically difficult or high temperature applications. Blasch designs and produces net shape refractory and ceramic components/ systems for a variety of manufacturing and processing industries throughout the world, including aerospace, automotive, casting, electronic, chemical, petrochemical, industrial process heating, and power generation. Blasch products are used in a variety of applications in challenging energy, thermal and chemical environments.
• Directions:
  • From Albany or I-90: Take 787 North; From Rt 2 or Rt 7: Take 787 South
  • From 787: Take the exit for 378 West. S Soon after merging, take exit to Rt 32 North (Broadway) towards Watervliet.
  • Blasch is on the left at #580 (near Albany Steel and Burger King)

• Tuesday March 23, 2004
• Glen Sanders Mansion
• Speaker: James A Ruud, the 2003 Geisler Award Recipient from GE Global Research
• Topic: Failure Mechanisms of Thermal Barrier Coatings for Gas Turbines
• Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are used on metallic components in the hot sections of gas turbines for power generation and aircraft engines. A TBC system consists of an yttria-stabilized zirconia topcoat on an oxidation-resistant bondcoat on the superalloy part. TBCs reduce the underlying metal temperatures resulting in substantial improvements in turbine efficiency, emissions or parts life. Understanding the potential failure mechanisms of TBCs is important for developing long-life materials and microstructures and for incorporating TBCs into designs with high reliability.
  
  Examples of thermo-mechanical failure mechanisms of TBCs will be presented for TBCs fabricated using both electron-beam physical-vapor-deposition (EB-PVD) and air plasma spray (APS) processes. The processes produce coatings with different microstructures and properties and subsequently, different failure mechanisms in thermal cycle tests. The EB-PVD system was characterized by cracks which grew at the ceramic topcoat - metallic bondcoat interface, while in the APS system, cracks propagated through the ceramic layer itself. In both cases, oxidation of the bondcoat provided the main driving force for crack growth. Influences of the coating microstructures on the failure mechanisms will be described.

• Tuesday, March 2, 2004
• Mill Road Tavern at Mill Road Acre Golf Course
• Presentation by award recipient, Charles D. Thompson, Senior Advisory Scientist at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory
• Trends in Nickel Alloy Stress Corrosion Cracking in Deareated Water.

• Tuesday January 6, 2004, 6:00 pm
• Mill Road Tavern at Mill Road Acre Golf Course, 30 Mill Road, Latham
• Speaker: Tom Capobianco, KAPL, EN52 Weld Metal Improvement

• Tuesday December 9, 2003
• South East Gallery, 99 S. Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY
• www.dancemuseum.org
• A Holiday Dinner at the National Museum of Dance & Hall of Fame with catering by the Glen Sanders Mansion.
• $25/professionals and guests; $20/retirees; $10/students

• Tuesday November 18, 2003
• Russell Sage Dining Hall, RPI, Troy, NY
• Professional, Undergraduate, and Graduate Student Poster and Micrograph Categories
• Speaker: Peter Schilke, the 2003 TMS Distinguished Career Award Recipient
• Subject: Enabling Materials Advances for Industrial Gas Turbines
• Abstract: Over the past 25 years the combined cycle efficiency for a gas turbine/steam turbine power plant has increased from about 45% to 60%. This improvement has been largely due to improvements in the gas turbine. The enabling materials advances that have made this improvement possible are described along with the driving forces for these improvements.

• Tuesday October 21, 2003
• www.albanynanotech.org
• Albany NanoTech at the University at Albany - SUNY serves as an integration point bringing together the nanoelectronics, nanosystems and nanophotonics technologies that will power the nanotechnology revolution. Albany NanoTech houses state-of-the-art, R&D and prototype manufacturing infrastructure for nano/microelectronics, nanophotonics and optoelectronics, nano/micro systems (MEMS) and nanopower science and technology.
• Directions:
• From North and Airport: Proceed South on I- 87 to I-90 East (Albany/ Boston). Take Exit 2 (University at Albany, Washington Ave.) Bear right onto Washington Avenue. Turn Left at first stop light onto Fuller Road. Proceed South on Fuller Road and turn Right at first stop light. At "T", turn Right into CESTM parking lot.
• From East, West, South: Take Exit 24 from NYS Thruway. Proceed East on I-90 from Toll Plaza. Take Exit 2 (University at Albany, Washington Ave.) Bear right onto Washington Avenue. Turn Left at first stop light onto Fuller Road. Proceed South on Fuller Road and turn Right at first stop light. At "T", turn Right into CESTM parking lot.
• Followed by a family style Chinese dinner at the Ocean Palace restaurant at 855 Central Ave, Albany (Between Colvin Ave and Everett Rd)

• Tuesday September 16, 2003
• The Century House, Route 9, Latham, NY
• Time: 5:00 pm Social Hour 5:45 pm Dinner 6:45 pm Presentation
• Topic: Accelerating Fatigue Life Prediction Using Ultrasonic Fatigue Methodologies
• Speaker: J. Wayne Jones, Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• In recent years considerable progress has been made in modeling fatigue crack initiation and growth as a means to better predict the accumulation of fatigue damage and residual fatigue lifetime in advanced structural materials. However, current understanding of the influence of microstructural variability, including the role of defects, on fatigue life has not been adequately integrated into these life prediction methodologies. This is especially true at very long lifetimes where crack initiation and the growth of short cracks dominate fatigue life and where microstructure effects are most pronounced. Only limited statistically meaningful data exists in this regime because the fatigue experiments necessary to acquire this data are especially difficult, time-consuming and expensive to conduct. Recent advances in ultrasonic fatigue methodologies offer the potential for this technique to be used as an effective tool for rapid assessment of fatigue behavior in structural alloys. Using this technique fatigue tests are conducted at a frequency of 20 kHz on standard sized samples, allowing 109 cycles to be accumulated under normal operating conditions in one day, rather than the months required using conventional fatigue testing techniques. The effectiveness of ultrasonic fatigue as a life prediction tool is explored by examining the very long life fatigue behavior of a cast Al-Si-Cu alloy, titanium alloys and nickel-base superalloys. Details of the observed crack initiation and short crack behavior at low stresses and very long lifetimes in this alloy will be presented, along with the use of this information in modeling fatigue life. Extension of the ultrasonic fatigue approach to assess the role of microstructural variability in probabilistic fatigue life prediction will be discussed.

• May 12th & 13th, 2003
• Frontiers in Materials Development: Computation, Nanomaterials, and Alternative Energy
• Ramada Inn, Schenectady, NY

• April 29, 2003
• 968 Albany-Shaker Road Latham, NY
• 4:30 pm: Meet at Plug Power
• There will not be a group dinner following this tour.
  

• April 15, 2003
• 2600 10th Street, Watervliet, NY
• 5:00 pm Meet at Saint Gobain Abrasives
• 6.30 pm Dinner at the Troy Pub & Brewery, 417 River Street, Troy, NY
• Saint Gobain Abrasives Watervliet facility traces its origin back to 1928 when the Manning Abrasive Company built on the present site in 1912 merged with Herman Behr & Co., of Brooklyn, N.Y. to form the Behr Manning Company. Three years later, the Behr-Manning Company became a subsidiary of the Norton Company of Worcester, MA. Norton was a leading manufacturer of abrasives and abrasive products, primarily grinding wheels. In 1990, Saint-Gobain Corp. of Paris, France bought the Norton Company. More than 1000 coated abrasive products are produced in the form of ifjumboly rolls by adhering natural and synthetic grains (grit) to paper, processed cloth and vulcanized fiber. These rolls are, in turn, converted into belts, discs, rolls, sheets and other specialty shapes, which are used for grinding, sanding and polishing in the metalworking, woodworking, automotive, glass and electronics industries. They are also sold into consumer and automotive repair markets. Abrasive products produced in the Watervliet facility are in jumbo form and are converted to final product at conversion facilities. The Watervliet facility also produces finished cloth for use in coated abrasives.
  

• Tuesday March 25, 2003
• The Century House, Rte. 9, Latham NY
• Speaker: David S. Morton, KAPL
• Topic: Nickel Alloy Stress Corrosion Cracking in Deaerated Water: Role of Environment
• This presentation quantifies the effect of dissolved hydrogen on stress corrosion crack growth rate (SCCGR) in nickel alloys. SCCGR has been observed to exhibit a maximum in proximity to the nickel/nickel oxide phase transition. The dissolved hydrogen level SCCGR dependency has been quantified in a phenomenological model in terms of the stability of nickel oxide not the dissolved hydrogen level. The observed SCCGR dependency has been extended to lower temperatures through the developed model and Contact Electrical Resistance (CER) measurements of the nickel/nickel oxide phase transition. Understanding obtained from this hydrogen level SCC functionality and complementary SCC subprocesses test results is discussed. The possible SCC fundamental subprocesses of corrosion kinetics, hydrogen permeation and pickup have also been measured.
  
  Alloy X-750 condition HTH SCCGR tests have been conducted at 360°C (680°F) with 50 cc/kg hydrogen as a function of coolant pH. Results indicate no appreciable influence of pH on crack growth in the pH (@ 360°C) range of ~6.2 to 8.7. These results suggest that pH is not a key variable that must be accounted for when modeling pressurized water reactor (PWR) primary water SCC. However, a ~3X reduction in X-750 crack growth rate was observed in reduced pH environments. Crack growth rates did not directly correlate with corrosion film thickness. In fact, 10x thicker corrosion films were observed in the reduced pH environments.

• Tuesday February 11, 2003
• Speaker: George Young from Lockheed Martin Corporation
• Topic: Quantifying Residual Plastic Strains in Welds via Electron Backscatter Diffraction
• Abstract: Recent developments in computer-automated electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) allow characterization of the degree of residual plastic strain in crystalline materials. EBSD has been used along with metallography, transmission electron microscopy, and mechanical testing to characterize the residual strain in a heave-section, multi-pass, gas tungsten arc weld of a nickel-base alloy. Mapping the plastic strains in the weld helps explain observations of brittle, hydrogen-induced cracking in an otherwise ductile austenitic alloy.
  

• Yono's Resaurant
• Armory Center, 64 Colvin Avenue, Albany
• Hors D'ouerves served at 5:30 PM with dinner to follow
• $20 per person. Please RSVP by December 5, 2002 to Jon Schneider at 395-6097

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Russell Sage Dining Hall
• Poster Viewing and Social Hour Starts at 5:00 PM
• Dinner starts at 6:30 PM
• Speaker: Dr. Daniel Eylon will discuss "The Ancient Art of Sword Making"

• October 15, 2002
• Tour from 5:30 to 7:00
• The Troy Iron & Nail Factory was established in 1809 upon the banks of the Wynantskill in South Troy. This was known as the Upper Works. The first business produced iron nails, hoop iron, and bar iron for local consumers. Henry Burden became superintendent in 1822 and production expanded due to his inventions. By 1848, Henry Burden owned the company and changed the name.
  
  The increased demand for horseshoes in the Civil War resulted in the need to expand, and in 1862, the Lower Works was created. It was powered by steam engines. However, as with all things, the failure and unwillingness of Henry Burden to change with the times ultimately led to its decline. Today, the office building stands not only as a monument to the Burden Iron Works, but also as a lesson on the relationship between technology and commerce.

• Social Hour: 5:30 - 6:30 pm
• Dinner: 6:30 - 7:15 pm
• Presentation: 7:15 - 8:30 pm
• Speaker: Professor Robert P. Wei, Lehigh University, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics
• Topic: Materials Aging, Prognostics, and Life Cycle Engineering and Management
• Abstract: The need for a science-based transformation and holistic integration of the methods for prognostic, and life cycle engineering and management of engineered systems is considered in the context of materials aging. The approach and process for predicting materials aging are illustrated through examples on aluminum and nickel based alloys.