4 ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | JULY 2026 ASM International 9639 Kinsman Road, Materials Park, OH 44073 Tel: 440.338.5151 • Fax: 440.338.4634 Joanne Miller, Editor joanne.miller@asminternational.org Victoria Burt, Managing Editor vicki.burt@asminternational.org Frances Richards and Corinne Richards Contributing Editors Anne Vidmar, Layout and Design Allison Freeman, Production Manager allie.freeman@asminternational.org EDITORIAL COMMITTEE John Shingledecker, Chair, EPRI Beth Armstrong, Vice Chair, Oak Ridge National Lab Adam Farrow, Past Chair, Los Alamos National Lab Yun Bai, Ford Carl Boehlert, Michigan State University Punnathat Bordeenithikasem, Machina Labs Daniel Grice, Materials Evaluation & Engineering Surojit Gupta, University of North Dakota Hideyuki Kanematsu, Suzuka National College of Technology Ibrahim Karaman, Texas A&M University Ricardo Komai, Tesla Krassimir Marchev, Northeastern University Bhargavi Mummareddy, Dimensional Energy Scott Olig, U.S. Naval Research Lab Christian Paglia, SUPSI Institute of Materials and Construction Ryan Paul, GrafTech International Satyam Sahay, John Deere Technology Center India Abhijit Sengupta, Bechtel Corporation Kumar Sridharan, University of Wisconsin Vasisht Venkatesh, Howmet Aerospace ASM BOARD OF TRUSTEES Elizabeth Ho man, President and Chair Daniel P. Dennies, Senior Vice President Tirumalai Sudarshan, Vice President Navin Manjooran, Immediate Past President William Jarosinski, Treasurer Rahul Gupta Hanchen Huang Victoria Miller Christopher J. Misorski Erik Mueller Ramana G. Reddy JP Singh Dehua Yang Fan Zhang Veronica Becker, Executive Director STUDENT BOARD MEMBERS Victoria Anson, Emily Ghosh, Wyeth Haddock Individual readers of Advanced Materials & Processes may, without charge, make single copies of pages therefrom for personal or archival use, or may freely make such copies in such numbers as are deemed useful for educational or research purposes and are not for sale or resale. Permission is granted to cite or quote from articles herein, provided customary acknowledgment of the authors and source is made. The acceptance and publication of manuscripts in Advanced Materials & Processes does not imply that the reviewers, editors, or publisher accept, approve, or endorse the data, opinions, and conclusions of the authors. AN EVOLVING TOOLKIT In May, I attended a mini-symposium, Advanced Materials and Component Characterization Methods, organized by the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) Section 9—Materials Engineering. A trio of speakers shared some novel tools for examining a material’s structure and properties. Erik Lauridsen from Xnovo Technology, Denmark, explained how multimodal imaging can revolutionize a lab when nondestructive 3D crystallographic imaging and component-scale fiber mapping capabilities are added to traditional methods. The combination of approaches transforms the results. The tools and techniques used in materials science are ever evolving. And this issue of AM&P touches on how various segments of the industry have incorporated new tools. Three articles in this issue are from the archaeometallurgy sector. They discuss the preservation and analysis of silver plates, an iron bridge, and historical monuments. Lab analysis of such artifacts has adapted over the years to utilize new nondestructive techniques. Yet, much of an archaeometallurgist’s work still involves hands-on, in-the-field examination at a historic site. It’s the combination of human interaction with artifacts plus sophisticated imaging techniques that allows archaeometallurgy to deliver important cultural findings. Addressing another materials sector—alloy development—in this issue is Part II of our Alloy 718 article series. The release of Part I elicited some exciting discussion on LinkedIn about the article and Herbert Eiselstein, the alloy’s creator. One commenter shared that it is amazing to think about all the manual calculations and iterations Eiselstein went through in developing 718— before the invention of Thermo-Calc! So true. Current alloy designers have the benefit of integrated computational materials engineering tools that greatly reduce the time to market. Now AI is on the scene as another tool that brings remarkable efficiency to materials-related industries. As one example, in this issue we include, “The Autonomous Thermal Plant: How AI and Robotics are Changing Heat Treatment.” The authors posit that heat treating is changing from a craft-based practice to a data-driven field. They also explain their rationale behind the delineation of tasks that are automated versus performed by employees. AI-programmed robots handle repetitive, dangerous tasks, freeing up operators to make key decisions on qualification, approval, and system improvements. This approach is seconded by Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, who spoke to a recent graduating class of MIT, her alma mater: “For everything that AI can do, AI can’t decide which problems are worth solving. It can’t take responsibility for the outcomes. These are actually our responsibilities and they matter now more than ever.” She added, “Technology itself does not decide what the future looks like—the best people do.” Our materials science toolkit will keep evolving. Humans will continue to create these tools and determine when to employ them. It is this multimodal approach—humans plus technology—that transforms our materials world. joanne.miller@asminternational.org Lisa Su.
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