Welcome
Dear colleagues,
It is a great honour for me to announce that the 7th Decennial Conference on Solidification Processing (SP27, www.sp27.org) will be held at the Beaumont Estate, Old Windsor, UK on 8-12 August 2027. This series of decennial conferences started in Brighton in 1967 with 350 delegates, and then moved to Sheffield for 1977, 1987, 1997 and 2007. The 2017 conference (SP17) was successfully held at Old Windsor with nearly 300 participates. Over the years, SP series of conference have earned a grand name, Olympiad of Solidification and Casting. It gives me great pleasure to invite you to Old Windsor for another great celebration of solidification and casting research.
Today, the World is standing at a turning point from the historical take-make-dispose linear economy to a more sustainable circular economy. The traditional dissipative consumption of limited metal resources is giving way to a more sustainable circulation of existing metals. This provides us with great opportunities to rethink how we source, formulate and deploy metallic materials, which is triggering a global renaissance of metallurgy and providing a unique opportunity for reshaping the metallurgical science, manufacturing technology and configuration of the metallurgical industry. SP27 aims to bring together solidification scientists, casting engineers and end users from both academia and industry:
- To make a fresh and critical examination of our historical approaches to solidification research and casting technology innovation over the last 60 years
- To discuss and identify new approaches to the grand challenges in the field for next 10 years and beyond.
Over the past 60 years, a generation of pioneers of solidification research and casting innovation have made remarkable progress in our field, and they are now retired or retiring. A new generation of solidification researchers and casting engineers are assuming the responsibility for heralding a new era. SP27 will provide a forum for both the pioneers and the emerging leaders to voice their views on future opportunities and challenges in our field.
I am looking forward to seeing you at SP27 in Old Windsor.
Professor Z. Fan
Conference Chairman