In The Beginning ---
The plans for this international conference to cover the broadening topic of Advanced Composite Materials were conceived by the AIME - IMD Composites Committee. Among us were members of the ASM, ASTM and AIAA, and we knew of the many other technical groups in the United States and abroad with active interests in the subject. A Planning Committee was formed to include the eight societies with active materials committees holding annual technical sessions on Composite Materials. Invitations were sent to many people in foreign countries to ask if they were interested. By a cooperative conference venture it was hoped to achieve a feed-back from the many countries we knew were Involved in composites research, and vainly hoping to avoid redundancy. On our part, we referred inquiries on eutectic composites to the Bolton landing's Conference, although the subject was not omitted entirely from the ICCM 75.
Advanced and high strength fiber composites still required an interface with the dominant field of glass reinforced plastics and such techniques as clads, honeycombs, textured metals, etc. The commercially available advanced fibers such as graphite and boron and the new aramids (Kevlar) would dominate the conference, but papers on Silicon Carbide, S-glass, whiskers, etc. were included, as well as advanced fabrication methods and applications. The intent .s to focus on the potentially cost effective Advanced Composite Materials and their properly designed applications.
For maximum international participation, Geneva (Switzerland) was the best selection. It was to be the first comprehensive Composites Conference on the European continent and the city most likely to attract authors from around the world. In retrospect, this was successful in spite of the almost doubling of costs between the early commitments and the meeting time. The success was in no small part due to the cooperation of the Battelle Organization in Geneva and in Columbus.
Fortunately the Planning Committee decided to hold the conference back-to-back in Boston. This was Intended to entice the international participants to the United States. We extracted talks and discussions from international attendees to Geneva and were able to bring many of them back to Boston for the less fortunate government researchers of the United States with their travel restrictions.
The financial burden for the conference was borne entirely by the AIME so that the costs had to be covered by the registration fees and the sale of these proceedings. The budget squeezes in 1974 and cut-backs on all travel wiped out any attempts to raise money for pre-prints. The lack of pre-prints always decreases the effectiveness for such a broad and foreign conference. On the other hand authors were frequently able to submit last minute findings and report work that made attendance and discussion more valuable.
The rapporteur system was chosen based on prior conference experience, since this permitted a larger number of papers to be included in broad areas without many concurrent sessions. The rapporteurs were to be the heart of the sessions to screen, edit and present the important results and features of the submitted papers, though recognizing the hazards and possible debilitating effects. On the whole the rapporteurs did extremely well in their reviews, in spite of the excessive number of papers that were included in some of the sessions. This resulted from the early acceptance of papers over a year in advance, and then the flood of last minute papers from authors spread over the world.
Communications was a problem, not only with heavily committed participants, but we were unable to meet in person with planning committee members from the various continents.
A conference value has to be measured by the attendance and exchanges both formal and informal. The Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva and Sheraton-Prudential in Boston were superb settings. Their ample conference rooms and Foyer de la Salle des Fetes brought everyone together with a common denominator. As an aside, our U.S. State Department had to process so many special visas that they learned about composite materials, as did their counterparts from Rio to Moscow. We succeeded, measured by the contacts between people internationally for both current value and future exchange. The ICCM was successful enough to advance to a second conference to be held in Canada in 1977, and offers to be in Moscow and Tokyo for the third and fourth conferences.
My thanks to the cosponsoring societies, to Alex Scott and Ms. Corinne Kiely of the AIME, and to the Conference Committee. The success of the conference was in great part due to the members of the Planning Committee representing the many foreign countries. Added was the unusual feature and international flavor of the Chairman born in Trieste, the Conference Secretary Swedish, and the two Vice Chairmen born respectively in Hungary and Scotland.
E. Scala, Conference Chairman
Ithaca, New York
