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(Dr. Mrityunjay Singh)
Dr. Mrityunjay (Jay) Singh, Chief Scientist for Ohio Aerospace Institute, has been selected to receive the American Ceramic Society’s John Jeppson Award. Dr. Singh was selected for this honor in recognition for his pioneering and seminal contributions and global leadership in the field of science, engineering, and applications of advanced ceramic and composite materials and technologies.
The John Jeppson Award, originated in 1958, is one of the most prestigious awards bestowed by the American Ceramic Society, recognizing distinguished scientific, technical, or engineering achievements in ceramics. John Jeppson was instrumental in establishing the Norton Company (Saint Gobain Industrial Ceramics). His ceramic experience in forming and firing were major factors in producing some of the first ceramic grinding wheels. Mr. Jeppson's work formed the basis for the subsequent growth of an important segment of the ceramic industry. The first recipient of this award in 1958 was Professor W.D. Kingery followed by many famous and accomplished ceramists from all over the world.
The John Jeppson Award will be presented to Dr. Singh at the ACerS 113th Annual Meeting’s Honors and Awards Banquet during MS&T’11 on Monday, October 17, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio.
The award also acknowledges Dr. Singh’s distinguished career. A member of the Board of Governors of Acta Materialia, Inc. and Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics, Italy, he is Fellow of American Ceramic Society, ASM International, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute of Mining, Minerals and Materials (UK). He is recipient of more than 40 national and international awards, edited/co-edited 42 books and journal volumes, nine book chapters, published more than two hundred thirty five papers in journals and proceedings. He has also been awarded many honorary professorships from universities all over the world and currently serves on the advisory boards and committees of more than a dozen highly respected international journals and technical publications.
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Dr. M. Singh, FASM, FACerS, FAAAS, FIMMM (UK)
Academician, World Academy of Ceramics, Italy
Governor, Acta Materialia, Inc.
Chief Scientist, Ohio Aerospace Institute
NASA Glenn Research Center, MS 106-5, Cleveland, OH 44135
Office: mrityunjay.singh-1@nasa.gov; Tel: (216) 433-8883; Fax: (216) 433-5544
Home: m.singh@juno.com OR singhsahab@gmail.com
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Additional links:
*The American Ceramic Society
Founded in 1898, The American Ceramic Society was formed at a convention of the National Brick Manufacturers’ Association in Pittsburgh, PA. It was there that several attendees banded together to talk about the scientific side of ceramics through a free exchange of ideas and research. Among the original founders were: Elmer Gorton, Samuel Geijsbeek, Albert Bleininger, Edward Orton, Jr., Willard Richardson, Ellis Lovejoy, Gustav Holl, William Gates, and Carl Giessen.
Today, the Society is providing knowledge and forums to members who are shaping the way we think about materials science. From bricks to cell phones and appliances to space shuttle tiles and green technology, the members of the Society are leading the advancements in ceramic technologies that keep people safe and warm, explore and discover new frontiers and save lives. The American Ceramic Society is proud to be a conduit for these initiatives.
*John Jeppson Award
http://ceramics.org/acers-community/award-winners-resources#14
(John Jeppson 1844-1920)
John Jeppson, in whose honor this award is made, was instrumental in establishing the Norton Company. His ceramic experience in forming and firing were major factors in producing some of the first ceramic grinding wheels. Mr. Jeppson's work formed the basis for the subsequent growth of an important segment of the ceramic industry.
The Jeppson Award recognizes distinguished scientific, technical, or engineering achievements in ceramics.
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Following article about John Jeppson appeared in Swedish journal:
http://www.hembygdshistoria.se/tidningar/utlandet/19281230johnjeppson.htm
The article in a Swedish journal was translated from Swedish into English by Chronicle, using Google Translate. It has done excellent work of translating (about 95% accuracy)!
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For the layman is a grinding wheel an object without any significant impact. He knows that it used to sharpen knives and the like. But to do so is limited also, in general, his knowledge. Few are they who see that the safety of the industrial life is largely rooted in the wheel's ability to adjust the metal, in particular, hardened steel, to an almost unimaginable precision in shape and size.
In fact, it's grinding, which has enabled this machine age, this new iron age, which we now live in. The cut has made possible an inexpensive precision and mass production. Without grinding process would auto-mobiles to be so expensive that only the wealthiest could afford to buy them. Not even the slightest mechanical engineering in our industrialized world would be able to work without grinding medium, even if it only exercises grinding to sharpen the tools that used for other operations.
Maximum production of artificial grinding wheels will be held at the Norton Emery Wheel Co.., Worcester, Mass. The boards are made of carborundum, which is a chemical compound of carbon and silicon, and forming the extremely hard crystals. This raw material which the said firm calls "alundum", portrayed in their own electric furnaces at Niagara.
The artificial grinding wheel's history is closely associated with the name of a Swedish, John Jeppson. He has done a very large part of the first experiments for the production thereof, and he has invented or perfected nearly every one of the operations which are necessary to manufacture this product. It can therefore be of interest to further receive and consider any evidence regarding this man's life.
John Jeppson was born in Hoganas July 1, 1844. His father was a carpenter, and several of his ancestors had been a mechanic. John Jeppson went to school in his birthplace, but when he was 12 years, he had to start working in a pottery and brick factory. At 16 he began learning to perform architectural ornaments and the like in clay, and in this industry, he worked until he was 24 years.
He was not quite 25 years old, when he decided to try his luck in America. Almost immediately after arrival in this country, he got employment with Norton in Worcester, which at that time only made pottery and other items. In this firm, in whose service he was to spend almost all his life, he stopped, however, initially only in 1873.
During the following years he studied pottery production at several other companies in the U.S. He became a very skilled craftsman, carried out in general the decorative part of the work and earned the highest salaries, which at that time paid in industry in question.
Then in 1880 he returned to Norton, he had thus expanded its in their country gained experience with a thorough knowledge of American conditions in the industry. In Norton's pottery factories was instructed then quite natural for him to perform much of the important experimental work.
Already in 1873 he had managed to produce artificial stone of emery, bound together only by mud and burned in a lergodsugn. The experiments with different materials was continued now, and in 1885 they had come so far, the Norton Emery Wheel Co.. could be registered. Jeppson was one of the founders, and he became the new company's first plant manager. His position as Chief Engineer he maintained until shortly before his death in 1920.
That company has since undergone a great development. While Norton in the first year after its registration with only hired a dozen people, was the firm's staff of Jeppson's death nearly 5.000 men and women, of which approximately 4,000 in Worcester. The plant layout in Worcester has grown from a small building with two ovens for a gigantic complex, extensive and some 50 buildings with approximately 160 000 sqm. floor space and cover an area of several hectares. In addition, facilities such as already mentioned, at Niagara. Withal, the company has plants in Canada, France and Germany.
It is obvious that the great enlargement of Norton led a kollossal increase in population in Worcester. Of the working families who settled in Worcester, represents a very large part - and the better part - the Swedes, who Jeppson got there. For this is the city in great debt of gratitude to him.
But Jeppson were content not to simply buy their countrymen livelihoods in their factories, he also took care of them and helped them cope. Then they came, poor and confused by the new circumstances in a foreign land, they found in him a friend and adviser. Furthermore, his moral standards very high, and he took pains that his newly arrived countrymen in their lifestyle would be seen as an example to newcomers of all nationalities.
In addition, he exercised a vast charity. The true extent to which is a result of his own reticence and modesty unknown, but the affection he won himself, and the many stories that emigrants talk about his benefits, speak for themselves.
His purely personal characteristics have thus been at least as prominent as his competence at work. For their efforts to the Swedes moved pious, he was rewarded in 1916 with the Vasa Order. At his death in 1920 did the city of Worcester and those resident Swedes a tough loss.
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http://www.nordicway.com/tour/?p=tour/view&id=202
Day 193 - Norton Company
Ten years after Hanson’s arrival in Worcester, John Jeppson and three potters from Höganäs in Skåne arrived in Worcester. By 1885 John Jeppson had become superintendent of the Norton Emery Wheel Company and was hiring hundreds of Swedes from his native Höganäs. His son, George Jeppson, eventually became chairman of the board for the Norton Company that today is part of Saint Gobain Abrasives, that manufactures abrasives and technologically sophisticated ceramics and plastics. The Norton Company at 1 New Bond Street became one of the major “Swedish” companies in the city. As late as 1914, about 75% of the workers of Norton were of Swedish extraction. On the walls is a unique family tree showing the founders and all employees who have worked for the company for twenty-five years or more. Murals depict various aspects of the company’s operations, and glass cases show its numerous products.
Before World War I, Norton Company built single-family houses for its employees, which it sold for $1,500. When the first village was built on Indian Hill Road, Theodore Roosevelt was present at the dedication. Other houses were constructed on Ararat and New Bond Streets.
In 1903, the Swedish National Federation was organized. At its 1921 meeting, it was proposed that a Swedish hospital be established, and the following year the Fairlawn Hospital, now Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital, was opened.
Lutheran Home of Worcester, 26 Harvard Street (508-754-8877), was established in 1920 as the Swedish Lutheran Old People’s Home. Five years later, the Jeppson Building, the first part of the existing structure, was constructed.
In Old Swedish Cemetery, 154 Webster Road, and New Swedish Cemetery, Island Drive, which is opposite 240 Webster Street, lie the early Swedes of Worcester. Upon entering Old Swedish Cemetery, visitors see a marble monument “in memory of those Swedish pioneers of Worcester who in 1885 founded this cemetery” Probably the most imposing of the monuments is the Jeppson family marker. Viking ships and part of the Twenty-third Psalm decorate the vertical stone whose border has a swirling Viking motif. Not far from the Jeppson monument is a marble seat in memory of Pehr G. Holmes (1881-1952), former mayor of Worcester and a member of Congress.
To the right, immediately upon entering the New Swedish Cemetery is a monument erected in 1967 by the Vasa Order of America in memory of deceased members. At the southwest end is a large stone honoring former residents of the Swedish Lutheran Old People’s Home.
Copyright © 2009 nordicway.com and Swedish Council of America (http://shop.mnhs.org/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=868 for copies of Touring Swedish America). All Rights Reserved.
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History of Norton Company, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Norton-Company-Company-History.html
Excerpts:
http://www.nortonabrasives.com/
Company History:
The Norton Company is quite possibly the world's leading producer of grinding wheels and coated and bonded abrasives. It is the leading producer of silicon carbide. From its inception as an offshoot of a small pottery works in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1885, Norton pioneered the development of new abrasives. It evolved from an owner-operated concern in which the original partners were succeeded by their sons into a modern multinational corporation with manufacturing plants in over 20 countries. In 1989 it was taken over by the French conglomerate Compagnie de Saint-Gobain.
The Norton Company illustrates an interesting characteristic of emerging technologies: they often arise from unexpected quarters. In Family Firm to Modern Multinational, Charles W. Cheape's history of Norton, he says, "Manufacturing fell to new people and not to firms like Pike [Company in New Hampshire] and the Cleveland Stone Company that dominated the production of natural abrasives. The older enterprises had merely quarried and shaped their output. They lacked the manufacturing skills and experience required for the new product, including the proper selection of bond and abrasive, their mixture in correct proportions, and their bonding at proper temperatures." All of the skills that Cheape enumerates are skills that a potter would either have or could easily acquire.
Frank Norton had owned a small pottery in Worcester since about 1858. He came from a family of potters in Bennington, Vermont, and had established a partnership with Frederick Hancock. Norton employed his three sons, his son-in-law, and several journeyman potters. The stock in trade of F.B. Norton Stone Ware consisted of stoneware pots, bottles, pitchers, jars, and jugs. In 1873 a depression hit the United States economy, and several of Norton's potters started experimenting with grinding wheels as a way to generate income. Norton had seen a silicate grinding wheel produced by a company in Detroit, and the story goes that he bet his crew a bucket of beer that they could not duplicate it.
In 1873 a Swedish immigrant potter named Swen Pulson mixed emery with slip clay and fired three wheels at about 2300 degrees in the Norton kiln, one of which vitrified successfully. The clay melted and the emery bonded or fused with it.
Frank Norton was unenthusiastic about the grinding wheels, mainly because he did not want to take a chance on an unproven product with an unknown market. Nevertheless, he patented Pulson's process in 1877 and started production in 1878. The wheels took a back seat to pottery and often were only fired when there were no pottery orders. Frustrated, Pulson left the company. Norton hired another Swede, John Jeppson, to take his place.
Jeppson soon became the acknowledged master at setting kilns and firing emery wheels. As business expanded, Norton hired Walter L. Messer to sell and promote the emery wheels throughout the country. He set up a distribution system that offered huge discounts and extremely easy (to the point of laxness) credit schemes, reasoning that because these wheels were consumed in use, easy terms would attract a loyal clientele. By 1881, largely as a result of Messer's efforts, the company was able to expand and hire more workers. By 1882 Norton's wheel business far surpassed pottery sales, and the company probably produced 10 percent of the entire industry output.
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(if you having troubles, try posting your comment on this page or send an email to chronicle @ itbhuglobal.org)Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP