Sustainable Development : Mining and Metals Sectors

The United Nations Conference on "Human held Envir-onment" in 1972 has changed our perception of devel-opment.It is now recognised that development should include not only the economic well-being but should also take into account the social and environmental welfare with the creation of appropriate institutional infra- structure. The evolution of such a sustainable develop-ment is discussed along with a brief report of the activities in India. The specific case of sustainable development of the mining and metals sector is consid- ered. The concept of sustainable development is of recent origin. However, it has now taken root and governments all over the globe are making sincere efforts to devise suitable methods and enact appropriate legislation to ensure sustainable development. This paper reviews the concepts, methods of implementation and indicators for sustainable development. In this context, the problems and the performance of mining and metallurgical sectors are then considered

Solidification of silver-germanium alloys under microgravity conditions

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Innovation Management

Innovation is a transfer of creative ideas into a saleable technology produced in a more effective way. The factors of innovation,which driven by the pull from individuals and push from the market, intertwine with all stages of the manufacturing and service processes. This paper presents some good principles for innovation management and analyzes factors that make innovation difficult to manage. The paper also discusses essential managerial issues for innovation management and attempts to make a projection of innovation in future

Solidification of silver–germanium alloys under microgravity conditions

SOLIDIFICATION of any melt occurs by the process of nucleation and growth. The driving force arising from cooling the melt below its equilibrium freezing temperature (undercooling) drives the process of nucleation. Depending upon the magnitude of the driving force, equilibrium phases or competing metastable phases get nucleated. In case nucleation is completely prevented, the melt freezes into a non-crystalline phase – the glass. The presence of insoluble foreign material, the container wall and impurities promote nucleation by providing the substrates. Therefore, any attempt to achieve high degrees of undercooling must remove such nucleation sites and several methods like the glass-slag techniques are available to facilitate the removal of extraneous nucleants

Is Steel a Sunset Industry ?

A brief overview of developments in steel making and processing has been done with particular emphasis on developments of various grades of steels for automobile sector. Time and again the challenges posed by alternat- ive materials like plastics, ceramics, aluminium, magn-esium etc to steel have been met and appropriate grades of steels have been produced with improved strength, toughness and corrosion resistance along with matching fabrication technologies. It has been shown that the steel industry is no more a sunset industry, it has to see many dawns

Biomimetics: a route for the synthesis of novel materials

The performance of smart / intelligent materials is dependent on the close interplay between structure, organisation and dynamics. These can be tailored to make advanced materials meet specific requirements. An attempt has been made to summarise recent advancements in understanding the synthesis of inorganic intelligent materials through such tailormade processes in Nature. The growth of the science of biomimetics, where endeavours are made to copy and learn from Nature, is traced

Trends in Heat Treatment and Surface Engineering : A Few Examples

Heat treatment has been undergoing rapid changes in recent years. Many if not all of these changes are brought about due to the stringentrestrictions being placed by environmental considerations and increasing cost of power. Surface engineering on the other hand has been assuming steadily increasing importance by virtue of developments in other technologies such as generation of intense laser beams, production and control of widely different ion beams, greater resolutions in scanning probe microscopes etc. The present article attempt to illustrate the trends in these fields through a few examples. The cases discussed are only for illustrating a few of the many trends and are in no way exhaustive

Iron and Steel Heritage of India : Contributions from the National Metallurgical Laboratory

The National Metallurgical Laboratory (NAIL) has done pioneering work in esiablishing the heritage of India in iron and steel making. Archaeometallurgical studies cond-ucted by NML in its early days have been presented. Some other sore recent pursuits of NML in this direction, as in archaeomaterials science of glasses, has also been discussed. In furtherance of the iron and steel heritage of India, NML has contributed profusely to the development of modern Indian iron and steel industry. Notable amongst such contributions are its work on characterisation and beneficiation of raw materials for the iron and steel industry, production of spohge iron, improvements for foundry grade iron technologies, pilot scale studies on steel making, production of ferro—alloys etc. The work done at AWL 'in these areas are briefly presented

Phase Diagrams

Phase diagrams play an important role in the tailoring of alloys for engineering applications. This article develops the topic of hinan phase diagrams without recourse to extensive use of thermodynamics. Reference is made to possible microstructures that may arise when alloys undergo different types of transformations that are recorded in phase diagrams

Modelling : Philosophies and Methodologies

Nature is in many ways deeply mathematical. Such a belief is the corner stone of mathematical modelling. It has been the endeavour of scientists and technologists to reduce many physical phenomena to mathematical formulae and gain greater insights through manipulation of these. The most striking examples of successful applications of this approach are to be found in the theories of particle physics and evolution of the universe. Both these domains of scientific activity encompass scales which are far removed from human perception. In the last few years, the phenomenal growth of computer science and technology has resulted in a significant change in the way mathematicians discover, prove and communicate with each other and with the rest of the scientific community. New branches of mathematics such as nonlinear dynamics or chaos, fractals, computer profs etc have also evolved rapidly. These and other changes are beginning to affect the modelling of material behaviour and processes. Selected examples of this theme will be presented. Modelling in metallurgy has been of relatively recent origin and has essentially blossomed over the last two decades. It has now developed methodologies of its own and is beginning to pay dividends in the form of a more detailed and comprehensive under-standing of the physical phenomena underlying metall-urgical processes. The ever increasing demand for mater-ials with properties tailored for specific applications, the emergence of nanodevices and machines etc, are placing a great emphasis on the predictive capability of mode-lling. In this presentation, we shall review the various techniques available to us and illustrate these with exam-ples from thermodynamics, kinetics, solidification and reactor behaviour