Pittsburgh, PA and Munich, Germany - October 2008

Reaching the Right Decision at MS&T and Materialica

Hundreds of engineers and scientists met with Granta at the recent MS&T (Pittsburgh, PA) and Materialica (Munich, Germany) conferences. They saw Granta's new CES Selector 2008 software (see new product announcement), providing powerful graphical analysis and selection tools to help materials decision-making, as well as the latest version of our GRANTA MI materials information management system, enabling engineering enterprises to manage and apply corporate materials data. Educators were interested in the latest CES EduPack and its increasing use to support a broad range of materials-related courses at universities worldwide. The environment was a hot topic - CES Selector's new Eco Audit Tool helps to address environmental objectives during design, while an educational version within CES EduPack aids teaching of sustainable engineering and eco design.

We also had some materials-related fun on the exhibition booth, linking the themes of reaching the right materials decision, using materials information, and eco design. We challenged delegates to try their luck and judgement on one particular materials problem. They were offered five unidentified materials samples and asked to place these samples in order of the Carbon Dioxide generated during the primary production of 1kg of the raw material - the material's "CO2 footprint". We're glad to say that (almost!) everyone identified balsa wood as having the lowest carbon footprint. After that, however, entrants found the ranking more difficult. The contest shows how even a comparatively simple materials decision can be hard to make without the right data and tools.

The correct answer - the graph shows the ranking of CO2 footprint for primary production (kg/kg) using the MaterialUniverse data in the CES Selector (Basic Edition)

Carbon footprint of primary production is just one piece of data available for 3,000 materials in the MaterialUniverse data module, which can be used within both CES Selector and GRANTA MI, and in the CES EduPack's Materials and Process Database.

In the graph above, which can be plotted with CES Selector or CES EduPack, each material is represented as a point. The five materials used in the contest are highlighted. CES Selector makes it easy to quickly generate such plots for any property and, more importantly in practical industrial scenarios, for combinations of properties - enabling identification of optimal materials choices and trade-off of competing objectives.

The correct answers were:

Lowest CO2 footprint, sample E - Balsa wood

2nd, sample C - Polyethylene

3rd, sample D - Silicon

4th, sample B - Stainless steel

Highest CO2 footprint, sample A - PEEK

Correct entries were placed in a draw, with the winner receiving materials engineering books written by Professor Mike Ashby. Congratulations to Qiulin Yu of Nucor Steel, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA.

Also at MS&T

Granta's Dr Patrick Coulter spoke on the subject: "Materials Information Technology for Eco Design and Restricted Substances" and Granta organised an open seminar on "Managing and Using Materials Information" with speakers from NASA and Westinghouse Electric.

Seminar report >>>

Also at Materialica

Granta's Stephen Warde spoke on the subject "Twelve Top Materials Information Problems - and How to Solve Them." Granta is organising a seminar in Munich on November 26.

Munich seminar details >>>