Final Report IX International Symposium on Explosive Production of New Materials: Science, Technology, Business, and Innovations (EPNM-2008) May 6—9, 2008, Lisse, Netherlands

IX International Symposium on Explosive Production of New Materials: Science, Technology, Business, and Innovations (EPNM-2008) has been held in Lisse, the Netherlands, on May 6–9, 2008. The event was organized by the International Organizing Committee affiliated at ISMAN, Russia, and the Local Organizing Committee affiliated at Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), the Netherlands.

The Symposium has a long history: similar “explosive” meetings have been held back in the 70–80s in Czechoslovakia. These meetings were highly popular among experts in the field and greatly contributed to the science and technology of explosive processing of materials. After almost a two-decade interruption caused by the well-known political and economic reforms in the Eastern Europe and Russia, the tradition was resumed in 2006: VIII International Symposium on Application of Explosion to Preparation of New Materials (EPNM-2006) has been successfully organized in Moscow, Russia, September 2006. At this meeting, it was decided to organize similar events every two years. Three countries offereded to host EPNM-2008, and the Netherlands won this right in stubborn competitive struggle.

The EPNM-2008 Symposium was attended by more than 100 researchers and manufacturers of explosion clad metals from the United States, Russia, China, Japan, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, and Korea. The total number of oral and poster presentations attained a value of about one hundred. This clearly indicates that the technology of explosive synthesis and processing of materials is on the rise: to date, this technology is being used by more than 90 companies all over the word.

Of great interest were the presentations by K. Tanaka (Japan) on theoretical modeling of wavy structure formation during explosive welding and by E. Carton (the Netherlands) on the use of explosive welding for the needs of aerospace and nuclear engineering; as well as the presentations by Prof. Yu.A. Gordopolov (Russia), by V.A. Veretennikov (Russia), and by Prof. N. Thadhani (the United States) on shock consolidation of nanopowders.

Attention of participants was drawn to some preliminary results obtained at ISMAN and TISNUM (both Russia) on shock-assisted synthesis of cubic BN from boron carbonitride BNC. Interesting results on hot explosive consolidation of materials have been obtained by a group of Georgian and American researchers.

Among industrial implementations, we have to mention the achievements of DMC Corp. (the United States) on explosive welding of tubes, large-scale production of exploclad metals in China, manufacturing steel–aluminum transition joints in Krasnoyarsk (Russia), production of nanodiamond in Bulgaria, and the use of emulsion explosives in materials processing (Portugal). New explosives for explosion welding have been developed at ISMAN and Russian Nuclear Center.

Financial support from our sponsors — Bitrub International (Russia), DMC Corp. (the United States), and Exploform (the Netherlands) — allowed us to resolve numerous current problems, including travel expenses for some invited scientists.

E. Carton, Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee, and E. van Puffelen, his assistant, did their best in organizing not only the conference flow (in the neighborhood of the worldwide known flower park Keukenhof) but also splendid social events at a nice weather (unusual for the beginning of May).

The excursion to Amsterdam (via flourishing tulip fields), boat trip alongside famous Amsterdam channels, and visit to the amusement park Madurodam, the Hague — all this was interesting and unforgettable. As well as the laser show in Madurodam after the banquet.

A success of the Symposium was achieved due to joint efforts of the Russian and Dutch teams. All preliminary work has been done by the Organizing Committee affiliated at ISMAN. А.А. Deribas, О.О. Likhanova, A. E. Sytschev, Yu.B. Scheck, and Yu.A. Gordopolov were the persons that contributed to this work at the utmost extent.

By decision of the International Advisory Committee, the next Symposium (EPNM-2010) will be held in Golden Sands, Bulgaria, with Prof. S. Stavrev acting as the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee.

А. Deribas
О. Likhanova