This issue of the Ceramic Transactions compiles 41 papers covering a rich diversity of the sintering science and technology topics. These papers were presented at the International Conference on Sintering, November 16-20, 2008 in La Jolla, California. The Ceramic Transactions series contains a collection of papers dealing with issues in both traditional ceramics (i.e., glass, whitewares, refractories, and porcelain enamel) and advanced ceramics. Topics covered in the area of advanced ceramic include bioceramics, nanomaterials, composites, solid oxide fuel cells, mechanical properties and structural design, advanced ceramic coatings, ceramic armor, porous ceramics, and more.

This publication provides an excellent one-stop resource for understanding the most important current issues in the research and advances in sintering science and technology.

This publication provides an excellent one-stop resource for understanding the most important current issues in the research and advances in sintering science and technology.

This volume entitled Advanced Science and Technology of Sintering, contains the edited Proceedings of the Ninth World Round Table Conference on Sintering (IX WRTCS), held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, September 1-4 1998. The gathering was one in a series of World Round Table Conferences on Sintering organised every four years by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA) and the International Institute for the Science of Sintering (IISS). The World Round Table Conferences on Sintering have been traditionally held in Yugoslavia. The first meeting was organised in Herceg Novi in 1969 and since then they have regularly gathered the scientific elite in the science of sintering. It is not by chance that, at these conferences, G. C. Kuczynski, G. V. Samsonov, R. Coble, Ya. E. Geguzin and other great names in this branch of science presented their latest results making great qualitative leaps in the its development. Belgrade hosted this conference for the first time. It was chosen as a reminder that 30 years ago it was the place where the International Team for Sintering was formed, further growing into the International Institute for the Science of Sintering. The IX WRTCS lasted four days. It included 156 participants from 17 countries who presented the results of their theoretical and experimental research in 130 papers in the form of plenary lectures, oral presentations and poster sections.

Based on the sintering conference held at the Pennsylvania State University, USA, this text presents advances in the application of sintering to the most important industrial materials. It offers results on both solid-state and microphase sintering as well as microstructure evolution, and introduces new applications, processes, materials and solutions to technical problems.

This volume, SCIENCE OF SINTERING: NEW DIRECTIONS FOR MATERIALS PROCESSING AND MICROSTRUCTURAL CONTROL, contains the edited Proceedings of the Seventh World Round Table Conference on Sintering, held in Herceg-Novi, Yugoslavia, Aug. 28 - Sept. 1, 1989. It was organized by the International Institute for the Science of Sintering (IISS), headquartered in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Every fourth year since 1969, the Institute has organized such a Round Table Conference on Sintering; each has taken place at some selected location within Yugoslavia. A separate series of IISS Topical Sintering Symposia (Summer Schools) have also been held at four year intervals, but they have been offset by about two years, so they occur between the main Conferences. As a rule, the Topical Sintering Symposia have been devoted to more specific topics and they also take place in different countries. The aim of these Conferences and their related "Summer Schools" has been to bring together scientists from all over the world who work in various fields of science and technology concerned with sintering and sintered materials. A total of seven IISS Conferences have been held over the period 1969-1989, and they have been supplemented by the four Topical Sintering Symposia held in Yugoslavia, Poland, India and Japan (in 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1987, respectively). This most recent five day Conference addressed the fundamental scientific background as well as the technological state-of-the-art pertinent to science of sintering and high technology sintered materials.