The Scientific Technical Committee (Electro-Physical & Chemical Processes) STC “E” held two meetings in 2010: Paris, France, January 22 and Pisa, Italy, August 27. The meetings were chaired by STC “E” Chairman M. Kunieda.
The technical presentations and discussions at the Paris meeting included "Manufacturing of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Current Collectors Using Selective Laser Sintering" (D. Bourell), “Workpiece Integrity Issues when Electrical Discharge Wire Machining Advanced Aeroengine Alloys” (M. Antar, S. Soo, D. Aspinwall, C. Sage, R. Perez), “Characterization and Measurement of Engravings” (M. Lanzetta), "Laser Sintering of Small Features in Peek - Discussion of the Main Process Influencing Parameters” (M. Schmidt, T. Rechtenwald, T. Frick), "Measurement of Energy Distribution into Micro-EDM Electrodes," (M. Kunieda), “Laser Processing for Dental Implants” (A. Malshe).
Reports on the progress of 2010 STC E Keynote paper “Tip Based Nanomanufacturing Using Physical, Electrical, Chemical and Thermal Biases” (A. Malshe) and 2011 GA Keynote paper “Laser Nano-Technology – State of Art and Challenges” (L. Li) were presented. Proposal for 2012 STC E Keynote paper from P. Bartolo “Electro-Physical and Chemical Processes in Bio-manufacturing” was finalized.
Updates on ISEM XVI 2010 (Prof. Kunieda) were presented including information on the number of manuscripts submitted, review process and travel, hotel and other arrangements.
Considering that new STC officers were going to be elected in the GA held in Pisa, the guidelines for election of STC-E officers which were approved at the January Meetings in 1998 were reviewed and approved with minor revisions.
Prof. Bartolo, on behalf of the organizers (P. Bartolo, M. Mitsuishi, A. Malshe, et al.) of the new CWG on “Biomanufacturing”, made a report on the first formal meeting which was well attended and invited high quality of talks, with significant academic interest.
At the STC “E” meeting in Pisa, Italy (August 27, 2010), following technical presentations were presented: “Micro-EDM Machining of Ceramic Materials” (E. Ferraris, B. Lauwers, D. Reynaerts, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), "Research Activities and Initiatives at NIST on Manufacturing Sustainability" (R. Sudarsan, National Institute of Standards and Technology), "Electrochemical Deposition of Porous Selective Laser Sintered Non-Polymeric Preforms" (A. Goel and D. Bourell, University of Texas at Austin), “Offset-and flexoprinting of electrooptical waveguides on flexible substrates” (L. Overmeyer, Leibniz University Hannover), "Laser Repair of Subsurface Damages in Grinding-damaged Silicon Wafers" (J. Yan, Tohoku University), "Laser direct fabrication of 3-D metal microstructures using photocatalyst nanoparticles" (S. Takahashi, The University of Tokyo), "Exploration of Bacteria-based Etching and Deposition for Micropatterns" (H. Hocheng, National Tsing Hua University).
2010 STC E Keynote Paper “Tip-based nanomanufacturing by electrical, chemical, mechanical and thermal processes” (Prof. A. Malshe, Prof. K. P. Rajurkar et al.) was well received and published in CIRP Annals, Vol. 59/2. Reports on preparation of 2011 STC E Keynote Paper “Laser Nano-Technology – State of Art and Challenges” (Prof. L. Li and Prof. B. Huis in ‘t Veld) and 2012 STC E Keynote paper “Electro-Physical and Chemical Processes in Bio-manufacturing” (Prof. P. Bartolo) were presented. The proposal for the 2013 STC E Keynote Paper from Prof. S. Hinduja and Prof. M. Kunieda: “Modelling of Electrical Machining Processes” was approved.
According to the guidelines for election of STC-E officers, Prof. B. Lauwers, Prof. A. Malshe, and Dr. A. Klink were elected as the new Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary of STC-E, respectively.
During the STC E paper session at the GA in Pisa, 17 papers were presented followed by a scholarly discussion. All 17 papers were included in Vol. 1 of the CIRP Annals.
The 16th International Symposium on Electromachining (ISEM XVI) Conference was held in Shanghai from April 19 to April 23, 2010, organized by Prof. Wansheng Zhao, Chairman of the organizing committee. The conference concluded with a great success owing to a joint endeavour by authors, reviewer, sponsors, volunteers as well as organizers. The conference received 151 research papers from 17 countries and regions, covering 13 different research topics of non-traditional machining. Based on careful review process to meet the conformance of the CIRP standard, 127 papers were accepted for oral presentation and 19 papers were accepted for poster display. 147 participants enjoyed the conference held at Hua Ting Hotel, Shanghai as well as the campus visit to Shanghai Jiao Tong University on April 22 and industrial tour to Suzhou on April 23.