The Crucible: January 2015

By Maria Cox, MMTA It would be very easy to think that because the EU’s proposed conflict minerals regulation has been announced as voluntary, it won’t have much of an…

By John Campbell, Emeritus Professor of Casting Technology, Department of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham, UK When liquid metals are poured, this innocent action separates the liquid into splashes…

By Tamara Alliot, MMTA The Executive Team was kindly invited to MMTA member company Less Common Metals (LCM) just before Christmas. Ian Higgins, the Managing Director welcomed us to their…

By Tamara Alliot, MMTA The Ancient Greeks spoke of a metal that could be found in the mythical city of Atlantis, and earlier this month this metal known as orichalcum…

Dear Members Rather than dwell on just how horrible the markets have been since I last wrote you, I thought I’d have a quick look back over 2014 and see…

In the world of smart phones, smart watches and even smart central heating, why not take a look at smart alloys? In particular shape memory alloys (SMAs). SMAs ‘remember’ their…

By BeST | Published: November 18, 2014 Beryllium helps the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission soft-land its Philae probe on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12th , 2014 – the…

By Professor Lenny Koh, University of Sheffield 51 industry and academic experts gathered in the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in July 2014, exploring supply chain challenges during a half-day…