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Advanced Materials for Transportation Technology Collaboration Program (AMT TCP)

About IEA AMT TCP

AMT TCP is part of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Technology Collaboration Programs, which was set up after the 1973 oil embargo by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The original goal for IEA was to advance energy security of member countries through coordination of energy policies on energy supply, economic growth and environmental sustainability. Under IEA, the Committee on Energy Research and Technologies (CERT) oversee the workings of international cooperation programs on energy technologies and developments. In July 2005, the G8 meeting held at Gleneagles, Scotland, IEA was invited to attend and was given a new mandate on global warming and technology diffusion to in exchange of carbon reduction in the developing countries. In recently years, IEA has focused on climate change and carbon reduction. The TCPs has also evolved to move towards renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

AMT is one of the oldest TCPs, started in 1986 by the US Department of Energy (DOE), US Army, US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to develop advanced ceramics for heat engines applications. Japan, Germany, Sweden, and Canada joined US to study advanced ceramics powders, processing, mechanical properties, and test methods to qualify advanced ceramics, and facilitate the free flow of advanced materials across national boundaries to facilitate technology development and diffusion of technology. A total of 85 standards were established including powder characterization, processing methods, and mechanical test methods. This is a landmark achievement.

After the ceramics, AMT has addressed advanced metals, polymers, carbon fiber composites, and lightweight materials. In 2005, AMT began to focus on energy efficiency. At each stage, member countries based on their interest and need, rotate in and out of AMT. Today, we have 9 countries (US, UK, Germany, Canada, Finland, China, Korea, Australia, and Israel, with Brazil on a temporary membership), and over 30 research institutes and universities participating in AMT technical activities.

AMT Mission

AMT currently focuses on improving fuel economy of cars and trucks. The mission is to develop materials technologies to enable industry to accelerate the following focus technical areas: parasitic friction reduction; thermal management of electric vehicle (EV); lightweighting; joining of dissimilar materials; advanced coatings and surface treatments. As technology accelerating forward with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and Internet of Things (IoT), we aim to incorporate these tools to explore digital manufacturing and standardization of sensors.

The technical activities are divided into 5 Annexes: Annex VIII- Thermoelectric and thermal managements; Annex IX- model-based coatings; Annex X- multimaterials joining; Annex XI- Automotive Glazing; Annex XII- Tailored surface engineering.

AMT Vision

AMT aims to pioneer in materials innovations to accelerate energy efficient technologies to reduce carbon emission; assess current and future materials technologies for the most cost effective technology transformations.