Abstract
(Englisch)
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The Brite Euram III European Union Thematic Network (BET2-621) titled 'MMC-Assess' was constituted in Oct. 1998 and coordinated by Prof. H.P. Degischer of the Technological University of Vienna. It brought together 21 partners from industry, applied research institutions and universities, thus assembling a representative cross-section of European researchers active in metal matrix composites. The Network's main goal was to increase market acceptance of metal matrix composites by collecting and evaluating information on their technological characteristics and on their potential for innovative applications.
As part of this common effort, EPFL participants have attempted to draw on the wealth of experience and information provided by the large team assembled to build a description of the current 'real world' activity in metal matrix composites, providing a global survey of who is doing what in this young industry.
We started our effort by building a database, which could be gradually enlarged and corrected over the three to four years of the effort. Advantages of this choice were that, by designing specific categories for the information that was to be gathered, research could be relatively well focused from the onset; furthermore, of course, such a database is searchable.
The database was started in 1999. The last comprehensive update of the information was conducted in September 2001, and the final information was added in early November 2001. The final database is thus current as of the end of 2001.The MMC industry is catalogued in the database as lists of:
(i) companies engaged in commercial MMC business activity,
(ii) MMC materials commercially available, and
(iii) MMC components and in-service products.
The result of the exercise is a set of databases that list about 137 companies active in metal matrix composites, 155 examples of these materials actually used or produced, and 74 products available on the market. Each of these lists has its separate series of data sheets, with its own type of information. Within the database, these data sheets are interlinked: from company in the company database to its materials in the materials database, for example.
The survey shows that MMC are now relevant engineering materials, featuring great diversity coupled with specialization, in the companies, the materials, and the markets and applications classes they aim for. The MMC market is still clearly dominated by aluminum matrix materials, primarily reinforced by SiC and Al2O3 particulate; however, several other matrices and reinforcements have become significant, and are growing in importance. It also emerged from the exercise that, although young, the industry has evolved sufficiently that it does contain a respectable dose of competition from within.
As a follow-up of this work this survey will be published over the coming year as a book containing the database in printed and electronic formats.
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