About 280 delegates from all over the world attended the 6th Duplex Conference and Expo in Venice from 18-20 October, organised by the Italian Metallurgical Association (AIM). The conference programme offered 80 paper presentations and one workshop for fabricators, which was sponsored and organised by the International Molybdenum Association (IMOA). A small technical Exhibition with 13 exhibiting companies was held in parallel with the conference. Since the first duplex conference in St Louis in 1982 follow-up conferences have been organised in the Hague, Beaune, Glasgow and Maastricht. The honour to host the 6th Duplex Conference fell to Venice, but in spite of the very attractive location this event did not attract a record number of delegates compared with previous conferences. It is fair to state that the organisers succeeded in establishing another platform where old and new friends from the duplex stainless-steel community could meet. However, most of the paper presentations came from the international university community and had a strong emphasis on recent scientific developments. As a result the end-user and engineering industries were poorly represented.
During a further round-up with the conference delegates it became clear that most of the attendees were satisfied with the technical level but found the presentations insufficiently focused on practical engineering problems and applications. Some of the exhibitors were dissatisfied by the low attendance and by the fact commercial interests of the Expo attendees were not well integrated with the conference.
Although duplex stainless steel has become an accepted material there is still room for further market penetration, new applications and wider acceptance. That potential was not reflected by this conference, either in terms of contents or in terms of impact.