Today, the “Cocoa Beach” meeting has become the preeminent international conference on advanced ceramics and composites. As a new milestone in its history, the 31st meeting will be held at a new meeting location, Daytona Beach, Florida to better accommodate the growing number of attendees and exhibitors.

The 31st meeting will be held in conjunction with The American Ceramic Society’s Electronics Division Meeting, giving participants the opportunity to explore exciting scientific issues and research opportunities in structural and functional ceramic materials. This conference continues its rich tradition of promoting interdisciplinary stimulation and cross-fertilization to facilitate research and development in challenging ceramics and composites topics areas. In particular, the conference will emphasize recent advances, developments, and applications in engineered structural and functional ceramics and composites, with ten distinctive symposia and three focused topical sessions.

As a foundation of the Cocoa Beach meeting, the Symposium on Mechanical Properties and Performance of Engineering Ceramics and Composites, continues its focus on the underlying fundamentals among processing, microstructure, properties and performance of ceramics and composites. The 2007 program also includes Symposium on Advanced Ceramic Coatings for Structural, Environmental and Functional Applications; 4th International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells; Ceramic Armor; Bioceramics and Biocomposites; Porous Ceramics; International Symposium on Nanostructured Materials and Nanotechnology, all of which cover much of the current active research and development areas and especially deal with integrating dissimilar constituents and materials for system applications.

The development of emerging thermoelectric materials with higher efficiency imposes significant material and processing challenges. The International Symposium on Thermoelectric Materials for Power Conversion Applications has a focus on the fundamental thermoelectric science and advanced high efficient solid-state thermoelectric materials for power generation applications. The International Symposium on Advanced Processing and Manufacturing Technologies for Structural and Multifunctional Materials and Systems, emphasizes novel processing and manufacturing processes that can realize unique multifunctional properties and performance of complex components and products.

The Symposium on Advanced Dielectric, Piezoelectric and Ferroelectric Materials addresses many fundamental electromechanical phenomena and also highlights the latest advances in the materials technologies for innovative applications.

New to the program this year also are three focused topical sessions including transparent electronic ceramics, electroceramic materials for sensors, and geopolymers. These topical sessions highlight the integration and development of optical and electronic ceramics, a wide variety of chemical, environmental, and physical sensors based on use of electroceramic chemical sensing or physical actuating elements, and aluminosilicate-based ceramics targeted for many industrial applications.

The ECD Executive Committee and volunteer organizers hope you will join us in Daytona Beach, Floida in 2007 and that you will find this meeting to be a stimulating and beneficial experience.

Dongming Zhu
2007 Cocoa Beach Conference Chair
NASA Glenn Research Center
Email: dongming.zhu@grc.nasa.gov