Chairman's Corner

Dr Cris Arnold

In this issue, we are focussing on the smarter side of materials. The term “Smart Materials” gets widely used these days to cover a range of innovative materials that have increasing usage across many technology areas. Smart materials can be loosely defined as ones where the components of the material are tailored to act in a specific and controlled manner. They include functional materials, which have active roperties, be they electronic, magnetic, optical or thermal. Other examples include materials where active components are formulated into more conventional structural materials, such as components with embedded sensors, self-repairing composites and nano-materials. They are becoming increasingly important in many sectors, but within Wales we have specific activity in the medical, energy and transport sectors.

There are several important features required for success with such materials. Firstly we need a thorough understanding of the materials involved, so that we can tailor not only the primary property, but also ensure all other required properties are compatible. This understanding routinely crosses disciplines, so there is now a need to operate outside the normal confines of metallurgy or polymer science and so on. As the complexity of each area increases, we are most likely to achieve this by effective communication between experts in different fields.We then also need to ensure that we have the required control in manufacturing. Smart materials are certainly important to our future, both in terms of where our high value manufacturing industry needs to be positioned and also the means by which we are going to attract new students into to subject of Materials.

As the article by Professor Irvine indicates, we have considerable activity within Wales researching into photovoltaic materials, with the Centre for Solar Energy Research in North Wales and significant collaboration between Corus, Swansea and Bangor Universities on low-cost PV coatings. It is rather surprising that there should be such an interest in solar materials in Wales, especially given our recent Summers, but maybe we take more notice of the sunshine when we do get any.