Welcome to Granta Material News, our quarterly update for users of materials information in industry. In this edition:

Last chance to attend the Materials Strategy Forum in Cincinnati

Materials Science and Technology (MS&T) 2006 Meeting

The best, cost-effective access MMPDS-02 and other aerospace data *

Join us in Anaheim: free workshop at the Aero Design Expo

Does our white paper hit the mark?

Consortium welcomes GE-Aviation

Materials information for medical device design

* Includes details of our 3-for-2 offer on aerospace data.

Last chance to attend the Materials Strategy Forum in Cincinnati

Granta is launching a new initiative, the Materials Strategy Forum, at an inaugural meeting in Cincinnati next Wednesday, October 18. It's not too late to register, especially if you will be at the MS&T conference (see next item). The Forum will be of interest to materials specialists, engineers, strategists, or senior managers concerned with issues such as:

• Inflationary, volatile, and uncertain raw material prices
• Adopting new or substituted materials or processes
• Rationalizing materials or suppliers
• Complying with environmental legislation
• Decisions about manufacturing and procuring equivalent materials at multi-national locations
• Design bottlenecks due to problems in finding materials data

Confirmed participants include ASM International, ATI Corporation, ATI Wah Chang, Bayer MaterialScience, Boeing, Caterpillar, Emerson Electric, GE-Aviation, Goodrich, Halliburton, Kohler, NASA, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Raytheon, Ticona, and Whirlpool. Join them to:

• See the latest materials information technology, including new software that helps you to define your materials strategy in a rational and systematic way, and to roll out this strategy to your entire enterprise
• Exchange ideas on materials strategy issues with your peers
• Find out about the Materials Strategy Forum – a collaborative project that will ensure future software developments meet the needs of member companies
• Hear first-hand accounts of the benefits that companies have obtained from similar collaborations

Materials Science and Technology (MS&T) 2006

We're looking forward to seeing many of our friends from the materials science and engineering community at MS&T in Cincinnati next week. Why not stop by our booth (number 308)? We'll be demonstrating the latest version of GRANTA MI 1.2, with new features for aerospace and other high performance engineering applications, materials science labs, MMPDS users, and users of plastics. We'll also be discussing our new materials strategy software (see item above).

Granta speakers are making three separate presentations in the technical program. Topics include 'Beyond Cost per Pound in Materials Strategy' and 'Facilitating Computational Analysis of Materials Behavior'.

The best, cost-effective access to MMPDS and other aerospace data

Granta is offering a better way to access data from MMPDS (formerly MIL-HDBK-5), the authoritative source for materials property data in aerospace design. With GRANTA MI 1.2, you can now access both the 'live numbers' for MMPDS property data, suitable for manipulation and analysis, and a PDF version of the latest MMPDS-02 handbook. You can quickly search for and use information, combine it with other reference or proprietary data, and review its full context in the relevant datasheet. GRANTA MI is a uniquely powerful, simple-to-use, and cost-effective way to share MMPDS data among multiple users.

MMPDS is one of three aerospace reference data modules offered by Granta. The others are MIL-HDBK-17, which contains valuable test data for composites, and ESDU MMDH, the pre-eminent source of European design-strength data. Granta is currently offering access to all three of these databases for the price of two.

Find out more and take advantage of our 3-for-2 offer on aerospace data.

Join us in Anaheim: free workshop at the Aero Design Expo

Granta and the Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) are organizing a free workshop alongside next month's Aero Design Expo:

This event is designed for aerospace and defense enterprises wishing to find out how materials information technology can help them to innovate, to increase efficiency, and to limit liability in the engineering process. This is one of a series of MDMC workshop. Rolls-Royce, NASA, and Los Alamos National Labs presented at the most recent workshops at the Farnborough Air Show and at Los Alamos in July.

Full information and registration for the Anaheim workshop.

Reports from July workshops: Farnborough, Los Alamos.

Does our white paper hit the mark?

We've had a lot of interest in our free white paper, The Materials Information Challenge in Engineering Enterprises, as advertised in the last Granta Materials News. This paper is our summary, based on Granta's experience of working with top engineering organizations, of the main challenges faced by such enterprises in their management and use of materials information. But did we get it right? We're sure that many readers can identify interesting perspectives and issues that we didn't cover. You may also have views on our estimate of the likely return on investment from good materials information management, which we believe could exceed ten-to-one. We'd love to hear your opinions! Why not download a copy and tell us what you think?

Download the white paper.

Consortium welcomes GE-Aviation

The Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) met in Los Alamos, NM, USA, in August and welcomed GE-Aviation as its newest member. This latest addition extends to fifteen organizations a membership roll that also includes Rolls-Royce, Honeywell, Alcan, and NASA. At the meeting, members reviewed progress in the development and application of the Consortium's supporting software system, GRANTA MI. 

"The meeting demonstrated the real value that engineering enterprises can derive from consolidating their vast and varied experiences through collaboration to define best practices for effectively managing and applying materials data", comments Dr Steven Arnold of NASA's Glenn Research Center, who chairs the Consortium Steering Committee. "We are delighted to welcome GE to the Consortium, as their presence will further enhance our ability as a group to define and meet the materials information management needs of the aerospace community."

Latest news from the MDMC website.

Materials information for medical device design

Granta's Dr David Cebon spoke at this month's Materials, Medicine, and Nanotechnology Summit at the Cleveland Clinic. GRANTA MI is the materials software system for managing, analyzing, and applying extrernal and proprietary data in medical device development. With our partners at ASM International, we also offered the first glimpse of the the soon-to-be-released Medical Devices Materials Database — a new online reference for medical device design. Mechanical and physical properties of materials are complemented by comprehensive peer-reviewed information on biological response and drug compatibility properties, along with information on surface treatment methods, coatings, and thousands of citations to published literature.

Granta representatives will attend the forthcoming Medical Design & Manufacturing conference in Minneapolis (Oct 25-26). If you would like to meet us there, contact us.

More on Granta's solution for medical devices.

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