The functional electroceramics market is multibillion pounds in value and growing year by year. Electroceramic components are vital to the operation of a wide variety of home electronics, mobile communications, computer, automotive and aerospace systems. The UK ceramics industry tends to focus on a number of specialist markets and there are new opportunities in sensors, communications, imaging and related systems as new materials are developed. To enable the UK ceramics community to benefit from the new and emerging techniques for the processing and characterisation of functional electroceramics a series of collaborative exchanges will be undertaken between the three UK universities (Manchester, Sheffield and Imperial College) and universities and industry in Europe (Austria, Germany, Russia, Czech Republic), the USA and Asia (Japan, Taiwan and Singapore). These exchanges will enable the UK researchers (particularly those at an early stage of their careers) to learn new experimental and theoretical techniques. This knowledge and expertise will be utilised in the first instance in the new bilateral collaborative projects, and transferred to the UK user communities (UK universities and UK industry). A number of seminars and a two day Workshop will be held to help the dissemination of knowledge.

High performance ceramics with high strength or hardness can withstand extremely severe shock loading, having been used in many critical protective applications. The rapid development of nanomaterials offers great potential for further improving the performance of protective materials to the next level. It has been confirmed both experimentally and theoretically that nanomaterials can exhibit much higher strength and/or hardness than their bulk parental counterparts, not only under general ambient conditions but also under high rate shock loadings. A recent Science paper has reported that ultra-high strength can be achieved for nanocrystalline materials under shock loading. Furthermore, composites allow for the combination of multiple advanced properties to produce a customisable behaviour. The increased utilization of such advanced ceramic composites under dynamic loading conditions requires an improved understanding of the relationship between high-rate/shockwave response as a function of micro-structure and even nano-structure. The corresponding relationship for single-phase materials is very different. In this context, three key Themes characterize the research: (1) design and synthesis of advanced nanocomposite materials; (2) elucidation and full (or fundamental) understanding of the nanostructure - shock response relationship; (3) prediction of the nanocomposites performance.

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