Proceedings of the Ninth International Vacuum Metallurgy Conference on Special Melting, San Diego, CA, April 1988. A hefty volume composed of 73 contributions discussing various aspects of melting and remelting processing technologies. No index. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Manufacturing, reduced to its simplest form, involves the sequencing of product forms through a number of different processes. Each individual step, known as an unit manufacturing process, can be viewed as the fundamental building block of a nation's manufacturing capability. A committee of the National Research Council has prepared a report to help define national priorities for research in unit processes. It contains an organizing framework for unit process families, criteria for determining the criticality of a process or manufacturing technology, examples of research opportunities, and a prioritized list of enabling technologies that can lead to the manufacture of products of superior quality at competitive costs. The study was performed under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation and the Defense Department's Manufacturing Technology Program.

The authors present a new method of producing high-temperature dielectric crystals, including cubic zirconia, glass, and melted ceramic materials, based on direct induction melting in a cold container.