On Friday, December 22nd, Professor Noam Eliaz of Tel Aviv University will speak on Additive Manufacturing by Directed Energy Deposition – Opportunities and Challenges.

Directed energy deposition (DED) is a branch of additive manufacturing (AM) processes in which a feedstock material in the form of powder or wire is delivered to a substrate on which an energy source such as laser beam, electron beam, or plasma/electric arc is simultaneously focused, thus forming a small melt pool and continuously depositing material, layer by layer. Noam will overview the main aspects of these processes and their use in advanced materials design and synthesis, three-dimensional printing of complex items, and repair. The relationship between process parameters, microstructures, and mechanical properties of various DED’ed materials will be presented.

Noam is the Dean of The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering at Tel-Aviv University. He is the founder of its Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He is also an endowed chair professor and the founding director of TIET/TAU Center of Excellence on Advanced Manufacturing at Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology in India, and the Chief Scientist of SGS Dental Implant. He was elected to The Israel Young Academy and to the US National Academy of Inventors (as a Senior Member). He was awarded with the title Professor Honoris Causa of the Transylvania University of Braşov in Romania, and has won numerous awards, including TMS 2024 Leadership Award, ECS Electrodeposition Division Research Award, The Israel Vacuum Society (IVS) 2021 Excellence Award for Research, NACE International’s Fellow, Technical Achievement, and Herbert H. Uhlig awards.

On Friday, December 8th Professor Ahmed Ghoniem will speak on Fuels Beyond Fossil: Why, What and When?

On the road to decarbonize energy, power and propulsion systems, electrification (using low carbon electricity from renewables, nuclear or with CCS) of different sectors such as transportation, buildings and industry, is being pursued deliberately and successfully. However, some areas, especially the mobile types such as long distance (air, water and ground) transportations, are more challenging. Others include industries that need high temperature heat and long-term energy storage. For these sectors, using energy-dense chemical fuels, such as hydrogen and its carriers, and biomass sourced fuels, are promising alternatives. The first are very different than conventional fuels, and the second while similar are limited by the supplies. Scaling to meet the rising demand pose its own challenges, and infrastructure requirements need significant investment. I will discuss about why we will continue to need fuels in some sectors of the economy; the different options available now and what may be on the horizon, some of the technologies and related economic and infrastructure questions.

Ahmed F. Ghoniem is the Ronald C. Crane Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director of the Center for Energy and Propulsion Research at MIT. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree from Cairo University, and Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. His recent research focus has been on clean energy technologies with focus on oxy-combustion for CO2 capture, renewable energy, biofuel and solar fuel production. He supervised more than 120 graduate students and post-doctoral students; published more than 500 articles in leading journals and conferences; and consulted for the aerospace, automotive and energy industry. He is fellow of the ASME, the APS, and the Combustion Institute, and associate fellow of the AIAA. He received several awards but most proud of the “Committed to Caring Professor” at MIT.