A symposium on Research & Development and Application of Nonferrous Metal Materials in Marine Engineering was held in Suzhou from May 10 to 12, 2013. The meeting was hosted by the Division of Chemical, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering of CAE, organized by the Suzhou Research Institute of Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. and the College of Material Science and Engineering of Beihang University jointly, and co-supported by the Suzhou National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, as well as the Suzhou “Attraction and Absorption Plan of High-Level Talents from Overseas (commonly known as ‘Thousand Talents Plan’)” Experts’ Union. 

Zhao Jieyang, Deputy General Manager of the Suzhou Research Institute of Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd., presided over the opening ceremony of the event. The symposium was attended by more than 80 participants, includ-ing CAE Member Zhou Lian, Pu Ronggao, Vice Mayor of Suzhou City, as well as other CAE Members, experts and entrepreneurs from 42 universities, institutes and organizations, such as the China Nonferrous Metals Pro-cessing Association, the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI), Beihang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong Uni-versity, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Dalian University of Technology, Cen-tral South University, the Northwest Institute for Nonferrous Metal Research (NIN), the General Research Institute for Nonferrous Met-al (GRINM), the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the China National Nonferrous Metals Processing Technology Co., Ltd. (CNPT), etc. 

CAE Member Zhou Lian, first of all, briefed on the general information of the CAE strategic advisory project entitled “Initial Stud-ies on R&D Status of Marine Engineering Ma-terials and Its Development Strategy”, elabo-rating on its major research objectives, tasks as well as expectations. Three CAE Members, namely, Zhou Lian, Xue Qunji and Weng Yuqing, served as the Project Leaders, and three research teams, namely, “Material Team”, “Application Team” and “Comprehensive Team”, were set up under the general project. CAE Member Zhou Lian pointed out in his presentation that, since the project itself was open and inclusive, more experts in the field of nonferrous metals were encouraged to join the team, thus expanding both the breadth and depth of the project. 
 

Wang Biwen, Director-General of the China Nonferrous Metals Processing Associa-tion, Ma Zhaoli, Vice President of the Beihang University, Zhang Hai and Li Huaqing, both Researchers of the Suzhou Research Institute of Nonferrous Metals, Ruan Guoling, Chief Engineer of the Tianjin Institute of Sea Water Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization, as well as Hu Weimin, Senior Engineer of the 725 Institute of China Shipbuilding Industry Cor-poration (CSIC), made academic presentations entitled “Application Status and Prospects for Copper Alloy Materials Used in Marine Engi-neering”, “Application of Aluminum Alloy in Marine Engineering”, “Application and De-velopment Trends of Aluminum Alloy Materials in Shipbuilding Industry”, “Application of Copper Alloy in Marine Engineering”, “Appli-cation of Nonferrous Metal Materials in Sea Water Desalination Industry” and “Application and Researches of Copper Nickel Alloy in Ship Seawater Piping” respectively. Participants of the symposium conducted in-depth discussions centered on application of nonferrous metals in marine engineering. 

CAE Member Zhou Lian stressed in his concluding remarks that, marine engineering was an extremely complicated system, with a large number of unknown fields in existence. He hoped that experts and enterprises in this field should seize the golden opportunity right now featuring rapid and steady development of China, promoting cooperation between research institutes and enterprises and building up a sound alliance among production enterprises, universities, research institutes and application enterprises for materials used in marine engi-neering. (By Cao Hui, May 2013; translated by Liu Chang)