Georg J Schmitz Editor

Georg J. Schmitz earned his PhD in Materials Science in 1991 from RWTH Aachen University in the area of microstructure control in high temperature superconductors. At present he is senior scientist at ACCESS e.V., a private, non-profit research centre at the RWTH Aachen University. His research interests comprise microstructure formation in multi-component alloys, modeling of solidification phenomena, phase-field models and thermodynamics. He is the official agent for Thermo-Calc Software AB in Germany and provides global support for MICRESS?. At the RWTH Aachen University he coordinates an interdisciplinary team working on the subject of this book. Dr. Schmitz has been appointed as expert evaluator by the European Commission and acted as assessor for the Australian Research Council and the Royal Society, London. He is active member of the TMS committee on ICME, referee for several international journals and associate editor of Materials Transactions. Dr. Schmitz has published more than 100 scientific articles and filed 14 patents.

Ulrich Prahl received his PhD in Engineering Sciences in 2002 from RWTH Aachen University on the area of damage and failure prediction of high-strength fine grain pipeline steels. This work has been performed in the framework of the joined program 'Integrative Material Modelling' which aimed the development of materials models on various length scales. Since 2002 he is working as senior scientist at the department of ferrous metallurgy at RWTH Aachen University where he is heading the scientific working group 'Material Simulation'. Dr. Prahl is vice-coordinator in the AixViPMaP project which aims the definition of a modular integrative platform for the modelling of material processes on various length scales along the entire process chain. He has published more than 70 scientific articles.