Up to this day after decades of research and progress the development of new energetic materials and systems still relies heavily on cost and time-consuming trial and error. The reason for this is that energetic materials characteristics like performance, sensitivity or ageing often exhibit unexpected and very sensitive dependencies on changing environmental conditions like temperature, pressure, or chemical composition. Also, the identification of essential input parameters for established numerical simulations is often constrained by challenging experimental conditions or financial and temporal limitations which restrict the detailed characterization to only a few selected candidate materials.
New methods from Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science could revolutionize the development of new energetic materials and systems in the future. This would enable scientists to screen larger chemical spaces, live cycle conditions or applications than ever before, to learn about cause-effect relationships and to extract more information from datasets. However, there is a caveat. One of the main challenges is the often limited size and quality of datasets, which hinders the development of precise models and the ability to discriminate between real information and statistical noise.
The 54th International Annual Conference of the Fraunhofer ICT gives energetic materials researchers a unique opportunity to discuss new methods and trends, to meet old and new colleagues and to contribute to a lively discussion. In particular, the conference offers a unique platform for young scientists and early-career researchers to present their research and to build their international network of experts.
The integration of "Advances in metal fuels and reactive materials science and technology", a symposium organized by Dr. Carole Rossi (Toulouse/F), Dylan J. Kline (Livermore, CA/USA), Conrad J. M. Hessels (Eindhoven/NL) and Peter Schaaf (Ilmenau/D), into the 2025 ICT International Annual Conference will contribute further to its wide spectrum of scientific contributions.
Chairman of the Conference
Dr. Sebastian Wurster
Spokesman for Explosives Technology, Safety and Security
Fraunhofer ICT, Pfinztal, Germany