In 1992 Congress passed the Defense Manufacturing Engineering Education Act with the intent of encouraging academic institutions to increase their emphasis on manufacturing curricula. The need for this incentive to integrate the academic and industrial communities was clear: gaps in manufacturing science were inhibiting the evolution of new manufacturing technologies that are required for the U.S. to maintain a competitive posture in the world marketplace. The Army Research Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories sought to contribute to the congressional intent by initiating a new series of graduate level college textbooks. The goal was to focus next-generation scientists onto issues that were common to the needs of the commercial market, the affordability of DoD weapons systems, and the mobilization readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces. The textbook The Mechanics of Solder Wetting and Spreading was written in this spirit by nationally renowned scientists for academe and industry. Research ers using the book are encouraged to formulate programs that will establish scien tific correlations between manufacturing process controls and product reliability. Such correlations are essential to the building of a new electronics industry which is based upon the futuristic concepts of Virtual Factories, Prototyping, and Testing.
