Left: The front cover of the PEMS'23 conference program. Top right: Purdue University President Mung Chiang speaking at PEMS'23. Middle right: PEMS'23 giveaways (tumbler and power bank). Bottom right: PERC director Steve Beaudoin addressing the audience at PEMS'23.
PEMS'23, which was invitation only, welcomed attendees from eight universities, 15 government/military agencies and 21 companies. The event featured technical talks and workshops that addressed pertinent topics in the field, including characterization and synthesis of energetic materials, propellants, additive manufacturing and modeling/imaging. Additionally, representatives from three Department of Energy national laboratories, three Department of Defense laboratories and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Sustainment (OUSD A&S) showcased their organization's energetics' research agendas.
PEMS'23 attendees mingle at the student poster session, which was held at Rat Pak in Downtown Lafayette.
In addition to the conference, graduate and undergraduate students from Purdue and the University of Michigan participated in a poster showcase where they presented research across four categories: materials, characterization, processing and modeling. Each poster was judged on its technical merits and the impactfulness of the research, and prizes were awarded in each category:
Materials:
- First place (tie): Energetic ionic co-crystals with positive oxygen balance (Andrew Bennett, Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan)
- First place (tie): The desulfurization of high nitrogen heterocycles (Jake Zuckerman, Materials Engineering, Purdue University)
- Second place: Conductive binder systems for next-generation energetic materials (Dylan Gilley, Chemical Engineering, Purdue University)
Characterization:
- First place: Multiscale assessment of adhesion in compounded energetics (Tyler Roberts, Chemical Engineering, Purdue University)
- Second place: LAS characterization of HTPB diffusion flames (Austin McDonald, Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University)
Processing:
- First place: A mechanical study of a mock polymer bonded energetic (Sydney Scheirey, Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University)
- Second place: Focused ion beam milling of HMX (Kerry-Ann Stirrup, Materials Engineering, Purdue University)
Modeling:
- First place (tie): Coarse grain force field of RDX using graph neural network (Brian Lee, Materials Engineering, Purdue University)
- First place (tie): Predicting propellant burning rates with neural networks (Daniel Klinger, Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University)
- Second place (tie): Self-consistent component increment theory for predicting enthalpy of formation (Tyler Pasut, Chemical Engineering, Purdue University)
- Second place (tie): Model for commodity and supply risk (Christopher Copeland, Environmental and Ecological Engineering, Purdue University)
