The new President has asked myself as Technical Secretary to contribute to the magazine on a fairly regular basis. This would be a "column" where I can report on topical things of interest and put forward my own views. I might also cover education issues, historical matters (35 years I have now been working in and around the corrosion field) and indeed future aspects. I might also answer reader's queries! The only essential thing is that they should relate in some way to corrosion/ degradation /protection etc. As there are many ramifications to these words, I think I should be able to drum up material, at least for a while. Thus my plan for my. next column is to discuss prevention of corrosion during transport and storage. This relates indirectly to the picture at the top of this column as the bag containing the strings on my guitar has "corrosion intercept technology!". It also relates to the aluminium printing plates that were formerly used to produce Corrosion Management. But more about that in the next issue!

This time I'd like to update people on the activities of the Corrosion Engineering Division. The renaissance of this division (very active at one time but moribund for several years) was the idea of the last president David Deacon and I was charged with the job of co-ordinator. This I was more than happy to do because, although I started out (and to some extent still am) an academic corrosionist, in the second half of my professional life (which I think I can safely say I have now entered!), I am getting more and more interested in helping in the application of the excellent basic corrosion research that has been carried out these last 80 years (I start it with Dr Evans, others may disagree!) Anyway, we identified three areas (now amalgamated to two) both relating to coatings where it was felt that we, as a Learned Body, could help to bring together workers in the field by establishing work groups. The main aim of these would be the writing and distribution of a code of practice for a subject area where it was felt that such a document was lacking at the moment (not too dissimilar from the TACC reports of the early 90s). That there is an urgent need for such documents can be illustrated with an example from one of the areas where we set something up with Intumescent Coatings - Application and Practice. The chairman of that task group has just had to deal with a horrendous and expensive failure. Although the exact cause is still under investigation it appears that this indicates the susceptibility to moisture of poorly applied intumescent coatings in adverse conditions. The availability of a code of practice would at least have lessened the risk! In the other area where we have set something up with Water Jetting for removal of coatings, a prime purpose is to get more people aware of what this method can do, what its advantages and disadvantages are compared with other methods of surface preparation and how the method should be used. I personally have been amazed at the uses that this technology can be put to (prior to being involved I thought it was just a useful way of knocking off lead containing paints). These include decontaminating nuclear reactors and cutting through three inch steel pipes.

Anyway the groups are now established. The water jetting one is under Jeremy Twigg/Trevor Parry's leadership. The Chair of the Intumescent coatings one is lain Wesley. Anybody reading this with an interest in or experience of either of these areas please either get in touch with me or the other gentlemen mentioned (e-mail addresses at end). We also hope to have a short meeting of each of these work groups at UK Corrosion (advertised elsewhere) and get the documents themselves out by the end of this year or early in 2006. In time it is hoped to get other Corrosion Engineering Division Work Groups off the ground (ideas and chairman welcome!). E-mail addresses

General:
Douglas.Mills@Northampton.ac.uk tel: 01604893005/3123

Water jetting:
Jeremy@rentajet.co.uk tel 023 8081 2921
or
sts@stsltd.fsnet.co.uk tel: 0191 414 7801

Intumescent coatings:
lain.wesley@atkinsglobal.com
tel: 01372 752024