May/June_AMP_Digital

6 A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | M A Y / J U N E 2 0 1 8 FEEDBACK The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently renewed support for the National High Magnetic Field Labora- tory (MagLab) with $184 million over the next five years. MagLab gives sci- entists access to a wide range of pow- erful instruments, including the world’s strongest, most continuous high-field magnet, a massive, helium-cooled structure with a strength of 45 tesla. The lab also created a magnet that can repeatedly produce a magnetic field of 100 tesla. The device is the only one of its kind that can produce fields of that strength without exploding. In addition, at 36 tesla, MagLab built the most powerful magnet in the world used for nuclear magnetic resonance, a technique often used by materials sci- entists to study complex structures. Beyond the primary investment from NSF, MagLab receives additional financial support from the state of Flor- ida and will remain headquartered at Florida State University in Tallahassee. LIFE-CHANGING SEMINAR In the article “Titanium: A His- toric and Current Perspective−Part I” [February/March issue], the authors mention the original winning of titanium from ore by Matthew Hunter at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 1910. This really brought back memories for me. As a freshman at RPI in 1958-59 without having selected a major, I attended a seminar by Hunter on this very subject. I believe he was RESEARCH TRACKS We welcome all comments and feedback. Send letters to frances.richards@asminternational.org. It will retain additional facilities at the University of Florida in Gainesville and at the DOE’s Los Alamos National Labo- ratory in New Mexico. “This renewal will allow the U.S. to maintain international leadership in critical areas of magnet science and technology, and to break new ground in understanding novel materials for quantum computing and information technology,” says Linda Sapochak, di- rector of the NSF Division of Materials Research. Each year, more than 1700 sci- entists from a broad range of institu- tions use the collection of more than SUPERMAGNET LABORATORY RECEIVES $184M UPGRADE 50 magnets at MagLab’s seven user fa- cilities. Much of the materials research takes place in the DC Field Facility, Pulsed Field Facility, High B/T (magnet- ic field/temperature) Facility, and EMR (electron magnetic resonance) Facility. The lab’s Magnet Science & Technolo- gy group and Applied Superconductiv- ity Center also play a key role in materi- als development. For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2HSwYjG. a professor emeritus by this time. That seminar convincedme to select metal- lurgical engineering as my major. Gerald Leverant, FASM RESEARCH VITAL TO PROGRESS Several months ago, a friend asked me about who is doing the kind of research on engineering materials that we did 25 or more years ago. I turned to Google Scholar to find out, by asking them to notify me when one of my research papers was cited. After a couple of months, a clear pattern emerged: Most of the research is being done outside of the U.S. More than half of the citations came from East Asia (China and Japan), with a quarter scattered among other countries. Only about 20% came from the U.S., all from universities. My specialty was fracture mechanics, studying why things break and how to prevent it. Understanding fracture of structural materials is vital to product safety. I cannot believe that the weak- nesses of bridges, planes, and nuclear reactors are fully understood. Nor can I believe that better materials for such applications cannot be developed domestically. Perhaps my 20+ years of retire- ment have put me out of touch. I would be happy to learn that I have the wrong impression. The question of improved performance of structural materials is too important to ignore. Alan R. Rosenfield, FASM National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. MagLab’s 100 tesla magnet is powered by a 1.43 gigawatt motor generator, pictured here.