ELECTROSTATICS NEWSLETTER

July/August No.145

It's a great honor to be writing this message as your new ESA President. I hope to continue the legacy of the great ESA presidents of the past Al Seaver, Joe Crowley, Glenn Schmieg, Charlie Kalt, Bob Gundlach, Emery Miller, and Peter Castle, to name a few who have helped foster the vision set out by A.D. Moore and the founders of ESA. I'd like to extend a special thanks to Al Seaver as outgoing President for his dedicated service over the past four years. Through his vision, encouragement, and leadership, coupled with his unique prowess at email communication, ESA has entered the computer age, extended outreach to new members, brought many new leaders and committee chairs into the fold, and continued an exchange and dialog with our counterparts in the Institute of Electrostatics Japan. I am sure I speak for the entire membership when I extend a round of applause to Al: "Many thanks from all of us." Thanks are also due to our outgoing Vice President, Mark Zaretsky, whose ever present involvement and advice has helped Al Seaver immensely in his job of running the ESA. Mark also serves the distinction of being the only Vice President in ESA history to have actually stepped in, even if only for a short time, as acting President. (For those of you who could not attend the Annual ESA meeting in Boston, Al was slightly under the weather on the night of the banquet and was unable to preside over the banquet.) Finally, I'd like to echo Al's note of appreciation to the faithful members of the outgoing ESA council Tom Lee and Ed Escalon for their continued presence and help in guiding the ESA, as well as to all the committee chairs who help keep ESA running.

What's in store for the next two years? I believe that the biggest challenge facing the ESA today is the identification of new areas of electrostatics that should call ESA home. Electrostatics is becoming increasingly more important in biomedical engineering, molecular genetics, and drug delivery. It also serves as a core discipline for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and shows immense promise in the continued control of industrial pollution. A perusal of the literature, both technical and trade, will show numerous researchers who use electrostatics every day but perhaps are unaware of the existence of the ESA. I believe that we should identify these individuals, let them know about the ESA and its activities. and hopefully bring them in as new contributing members and as speakers at future ESA meetings. Indeed, several new people were invited to speak at the 1999 ESA meeting and expressed interest in joining. I hope that this trend continues.

What’s the challenge for you: Identify one individual who works with or uses electrostatics but is unaware of the existence of the ESA. Perhaps you've read an article related to electrostatics in a journal or magazine? Maybe you've heard a speaker who works in a field related to electrostatics? Send that person's name either to me or to Bill Smart, our newsletter editor, and we’ll put them on the mailing list for a year. In that way, perhaps we can continue the heritage of the ESA as being a premier world forum for issues related to electrostatics.

For the Friendly Society,

Mark Horenstein

I was asked, in an unexpected substitute role, to provide some glimpse of this year's ESA conference with an eye towards those who were unable to attend. This seems to have become a recurrent theme for me, as those who were at the conference know. In a quasi-stream-of-consciousness manner, I will try to recapture some of the conference highlights.This is but an

incomplete list that hopefully touches on some of the many memorable moments (at least for myself). Let me preface this by saying that Mark Horenstein did an excellent job of organizing and chairing this year's event. I hope to see you at next year's conference (June 18-21, 2000)

chaired by Bill Vosteen and located on the campus of Brock University, St. Catharines, CANADA, near Niagara Falls.

Seeing old, familiar faces....Meeting new, unfamiliar faces....A wide range of talks from modeling of corona I-V curves to measuring the twist of flux lines via a quantity called helicity to resistivity measurements of textiles to a tribocharge sensor for filter bag leak detection to electroquasistatic sensing of land mines and other unexploded ordnance to using ozone and UV for controlling microorganisms in food processing to micro-electrostatic fluid pumps (my apologies to those whose topics didn't get mentioned due to lack of space)....Enjoying Boston - lunch in Chinatown, seafood dinner in Fanueil Hall, great ice cream everywhere, liquid refreshments in the Dugout - a local "seedy establishment", walking everywhere (downtown, along the Charles River, from the dorm to the conference site)....The light exhibit in the Photonics building (I think I did see the time displayed once, but I never could envision Maxwell's equations)....A wonderful sensory exhibition in the Science Museum's Hall of Electricity of the world's largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator (2.5 MV!!) and Tesla coils ("I wouldn't get any closer to that sir")....A memorable awards ceremony honoring some genuinely suprised recipients with Lifetime Achievement awards, Joe Crowley and Peter Castle, as well as a posthumous Hall of Fame award for Jim Melcher, gracefully accepted by his wife, Janet....Glenn Schmeig's fun and educational talk on the topic of scaling - complete with wooden cow and calf!

Mark Zaretsky

At left, Glenn Schmieg warms up to the subject of his after dinner talk - Scaling. Here he is happy to find that scaling up the dimensions of a beer bottle by a mere factor of four, gives him 64 times as much beer!

Below, with the help of Humphrey Wong and Mark Zaretsky, Glenn prepares us for the climax of his talk - a crashing cow collapse - proof that all scaling efforts aren’t as successful as ones with beer bottles.

The Institute of Electrostatics of Japan (IEJ) announces that the 1999 Annual Meeting of IEJ will be held September 16 - 17th, 1999 at Chiba Institue of Technology, Thudanuma, Japan which is located near the JR Tsudanuma Station.

The IEJ is 23 years old and publishes a monthly Journal. Many researchers intersted in the field of electrostatics attend and present technical papers at the Annual Meetings. Last year, 114 papers were published in the Proceedings of the Meeting and about 260 researchers attended. The Global Internationalization Trend suggested the necessity of international mutual communication and discussion. Many foreign guest researchers visit Japan and also many young foreign researchers including graduate students and post doctoral researchers are working in Japan now.

The IEJ organized the International Session where the English language is used at the Annual Meeting in 1992. In 1994, 1996, and 1998, the IEJ held International Joint Symposiums with Electrostatic Society America (ESA). 5th International Session will be held in this year.

If you are intersted in attending and submitting a paper, please send the title of your paper, authors names, and an abstract (150 - 500 words). Include your exact address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address. This information should be sent to:

Professor Tetsuji ODA

Dept.Electronic Eng., School of Engineering

The University of Tokyo

7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656 Japan

fax +81-03-5689-4739 (+81-03-5841-6786 from May)

e-mail: oda@ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

(e-mail or fax is acceptable)

Camara-ready manuscripts (2-6 pages) must be arrive by July 31st, 1999.

Further Information including format,etc will be sent directly to authors who have sent abstracts.

Note:

Tsudanuma is located between Narita Internationa Airport and Tokyo (40 minutes by train).

Speakers at the International Session will receive free registration and banquet ticket.

Thanks to Dr Ellen Kuhfeld of the Bakken Library for writing to us as follows:

"I thought you might be interested in the new electrostatic hair restorative, which can be found on page 72 of the April 26, 1999 Newsweek. Apparently they use electrostatically polarized microfibers to grab onto and hold and bulk out the individual hairs on our heads. One of humanity’s oldest problems solved! Better living through electricity!"

(Editor’s Note: I don’t think Ellen and I have ever met, so how did she know that I might be interested? Well, there are several others in ESA who might also benefit from this. I won’t mention any names, but one of them gives great after dinner speeches at ESA conferences.)

Copies of the Proceedings may be obtained from the Laplacian Press, 16525 Jackson Oaks Dr., Morgan Hill, CA 95037-6932. Phone: 408-779-7774, Fax: 408-779-3638, Email: electro@electrostatic.com

Schedule & Location:

September 22-23, 1999 Embassy Suites, Schaumburg, Illinois USA

Explore your knowledge about Dust Explosions. Increase Productivity and Profitability of your operations. Interact with a team of Professional Safety Engineers and Consultants. Understand and recognize the hazards associated with the dust and powder industry. Evaluate Dust Explosion Hazards and select Hazard Control Measures

Schedule & Location:

September 24, 1999 Embassy Suites, Schaumburg, Illinois USA

This workshop will provide a practical understanding of the theory and practical hazards involved with electrostatic discharge phenomena. It will offer test and analysis techniques leading to practical advice on the control, mitigation and, even, prevention of static electricity hazards in process and handling plants. The lectures will focus on static electricity theory as related to conducting electrostatic hazards analysis on powder handling, processing and manufacturing operations. Topics to be covered will include: (1) electrostatic theory, (2) electrostatic discharge theory, (3) detailed review of electrostatic charging, storage and discharge methods both in laboratory and field testing, (4) electrostatic hazard analysis techniques including failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), fault tree analysis (FTA), and sneak circuit.

For detailed information on these seminars, contact:

SCE Safety Consulting Engineers, Inc.

2131 HAMMOND DRIVE, SCHAUMBURG, ILLINOIS 60173

(847) 925-8100, Fax: (847) 925-8120 Email: sceinc@sceinc.com

website: www.sceinc.com