U.S.-Turkey Workshop on Shape Memory Alloys: Current Challenges and Future Prospect, June 2010, at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey

A Workshop on Shape Memory Alloys: Current Challenges and Future Prospect? is to be held June 20th-24th, 2010 on the campus of Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey. The workshop is organized by several faculty members including Dr. Karaman from Texas A&M University, and others from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the University of Kentucky, and the Pennsylvania State University, together with the colleagues from Germany and Turkey. The co-organizer is Dr. M. Irsadi Aksun, Acting Dean of Engineering at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey. The meeting will consist of approximately 50 presentations with panel discussions, covering a wide range of topics in shape memory alloys, and student/post-doc poster session and competition. The workshop is an activity of the NSF-funded International Materials Institute (IMI) at Texas A&M University, in partnership with several other universities. This ?International Institute of Multifunctional Materials for Energy Conversion? aims at developing partnership and research collaborations with Middle East and Mediterranean countries in efficient energy conversion and reliable energy transfer. Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) are an important material class for the energy conversion and transfer and an integral part of this institute. The goal of this workshop is to bring the SMA research community together to share the recent developments in the field, evolving topics, and opportunities. More importantly, the workshop aims at creating a vivid discussion forum to analyze what the research community can/should do in the scientific fundamentals to bring about the next revolution in SMAs for their accelerated insertion into existing and new fields of applications from actuation to damping and from energy harvesting to transmission in energy, infrastructure, biomedical, automotive, aerospace, and consumer products markets. Topics covered at the meeting will have significant impact on the future of SMAs and are of importance to the US research competitiveness. The meeting provides a unique forum for invited scientists to communicate their ideas on problems of common interest in an international and multidisciplinary environment.

Intellectual merit: This SMA workshop will highlight the new material design, experimental, computational, and theoretical advances in processing, characterization, multiscale modeling, and device applications of these materials, as well as improved understanding of the underlying processes and mechanisms. In addition, the interdisciplinary research on the boundaries of science and engineering will be highlighted.

Broader impacts: The workshop provides a unique opportunity for close interactions and communication between the students and the international experimental and theoretical researchers as well as people at the applications front. Moreover, graduate students including the ones from underrepresented groups will find a forum to present their research and interact with their peers and with recognized experts in the shape memory research community. The workshop will be held on the campus of Koc University, which is at the center of the geographical region of interest for the NSF-funded IMI. This will provide an opportunity for scientists and students from the region to easily attend the workshop, better interact with the U.S. scientists and students, and develop new partnership and collaborations with the US researchers and universities. To maintain the US leadership in active materials, the workshop is timely and relevant to the NSF mission.