PREFACE

The 18^th Annual conference on Fossil Energy Materials was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, on May 9 through May 11, 2004. The meeting was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy through the Advanced Research Materials Program (ARM).

The objective of the ARM Program is to conduct research and development on materials for longer-term fossil energy applications, as well as for generic needs of various fossil fuel technologies. The management of the program has been decentralized to the DOE Oak Ridge Operations Office and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The research is performed by staff members at ORNL and by researchers at other national laboratories, universities, and in private industry. The work is divided into the following categories: (1) New Alloys (2) Functional Materials, (3) Materials Performance and Reliability, and (4) Coatings and Protection of Materials.

These proceedings were produced primarily from electronic files provided by the authors. They have been neither refereed nor extensively edited. However, most of the papers have already undergone technical review within the individual organizations before submission to the Program Office. The proceedings are available on the Fossil Energy home page at http://www.ornl.gov/fossil.

The successful completion of the conference and publication of the proceedings has required help from several people. The organizers wish to thank Angela Beach of the ORNL Conference Office for her help in the many arrangements and the numerous staff and support personnel associated with the conference. Finally we express our sincere appreciation to the authors whose efforts are the very basis of the conference.

Conference Chairmen

ORNL

Roddie R. Judkins

Ian G. Wright

DOE

Bob Romanosky

Conference Coordinator

LaRonda Mack/ORNL