Processing, Microstructure and Performance of Materials

A workshop on Processing, Microstructure and Performance of Materials was held at the University of Auckland, School of Engineering, on 8–9 April 2009. Organised by the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Auckland, this meeting consisted of international participants and aimed at addressing the state-of-the-art research activities in processing, microstructure characterization and performance integrity investigation of materials. This two-day conference brought together scientists and engineers from New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, France, and the United Kingdom.

Undoubtedly, this diverse group of participants brought a very international flair to the proceedings which also featured original research papers on areas such as Materials processing; Microstructure characterisation and microanalysis; Mechanical response at different length scales, Biomaterials and Material Structural integrity. There were a total of 10 invited speakers, 16 paper presentations, and 14 poster presentations.

Consequently, the presentations were carefully considered by the scientific committee and participants were invited to submit full papers for this volume. All the invited paper submissions for this volume have been peer reviewed by experts in the various fields represented in this conference, this in accordance to the expected standards of the journal's Peer review policy for IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. The works in this publication consists of new and original research as well as several expert reviews of current state-of-the art technologies and scientific developments.

Knowing some of the real constraints on hard-copy publishing of high quality, high resolution images, the editors are grateful to IOP Publishing for this opportunity to have the papers from this conference published on the online open-access platform.

Listed in this volume are papers on a range of topics on materials research, including Ferguson's high strain rate deformation studies of wood, Nebosky et al's manufacturing methods of tantalum metal implant material, Tan et al's self-healing materials, Gabbitas et al's work on titanium alloys and others.

Also among the review papers, topics include that on small-scale plasticity by Ng and Ngan showing how distinct plasticity between micro- and macro-specimens can be interpreted by size-dependent dislocation activities; and the latest advancements in electron microscopy, with a special emphasis on its application to materials engineering.

Niche areas such as cartilage, dental and biomineralisation research are also included in several of the papers, as a recognition of the rapidly growing interest in biological materials research and its clinical relevance.

Decidedly a resounding success, the conference and this volume owes much to all the individuals, organising committee, helpers and participants, who have taken time out to put in the effort of organising the meeting, preparing the presentations and writing the papers.