KNOXVILLE — Scientists from around the world will meet here November 16-20 to talk about neutron scattering research and tour the area’s materials research facilities.
The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are hosting the first Advanced Neutron Scattering netWork for Education and Research, or ANSWER, conference.
UT materials science and engineering professors Peter Liaw, Hahn Choo and Raymond Buchanan and ORNL researchers Camden Hubbard and Xunli Wang are co-directors.
Liaw said the event seeks to gather the international neutron-scattering materials research community and provide a forum to discuss current and future research activities and ideas.
Specific topics include: neutron-scattering facilities and instruments; mechanical behavior of materials; residual stresses; microstructure; and theoretical modeling.
The conference also will feature talks by prominent researchers, tutorials for students and researchers on techniques of neutron scattering, and tours of materials-research facilities, such as the Spallation Neutron Source and High Temperature Materials Laboratory at ORNL.
Sessions also will be held to discuss areas of important and innovative research for joint research programs; current status of the international collaborative research projects; progress reports by ANSWER Fellows and evaluation; and planning of international exchange programs.
NSF, UT, ORNL and Oak Ridge Associated Universities provide support for the workshop.
More details on the workshop may be found online at http://www.sns.gov/jins/answer2003/answer2003.htm.
UT announced in March it had received a $3.6 million grant from NSF to establish an International Materials Institute and the ANSWER program.
The institute also received $1.13 million from the Tennessee Advanced Materials Laboratory, the Center for Materials Processing, the Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences and other UT offices.
Goals for the institute include advancing fundamental understanding of mechanical behavior of materials using state-of-the-art neutron sources; developing an international network of researchers and educators in the field of neutron scattering; exchanging scientific information through collaborative research; and a global partnership network for materials research and education.