Abstract
This report summarizes the research on the strategic and critical materials program tasks between May 1983 and April 1984. The work is divided into two areas: (1) production technologies and (2) conservation-substitution technologies. Production technologies, tasks directed at developing advanced extraction technologies, include biologically-assisted minerals processing, metal-gas reactions and thermal plasmas, and dehydration of aluminum chloride hexahydrate. Conservation-substitution technologies, tasks directed toward establishing the technical processing base that will permit the use of advanced materials, include joining of rapidly solidified alloys (rsa), joining of silicon nitride-based ceramics, and nondestructive evaluation of ceramic and rsa joints and materials.