Editor’s note:These brief extracts are paraphrased from live webcast and may not be fully correct.

Download the full presentation: Advanced Materials Research

Presentation by Robert Guntlin, Managing Director, Access

  • Problem: Developing transport with less emissions means decreasing weight. We are pushing the limits of materials as well as our understanding of the process at such small scale by making them so thin.
  • The Materials Science Lab on the ISS is designed to research the solidification process of liquid metals when they form solid structures.
  • By observing how metals solidify in microgravity we can understand the process better.
  • New knowledge will be used to create better alloys under hyper gravity in centrifuges.
  • Bridging the worlds of commercial engineers and scientists is a challenge. For example Titanium Aluminium alloy blades are used in most jet engines. In the next 4 years over 1 million blades need to be made, however there was no automatic process for this.
  • ESA offers attractive means to support dialogue between science and industry.
  • Access now offers an automatic process to create Titanium Aluminium alloys.