It’s a few months since I did a Technical Topics column. In between we have had a report on the major and successful Corrosion conference in Edinburgh (EuroCorr 08) and also the CED day in October. Regarding the latter there is a plan for a CED Spring working day at the Health and Safety labs in Buxton on Thursday 23rd April. Hopefully more details (even a flyer) may get into this issue. Regarding EuroCorr, this years conference is in Nice from 6th-10th September. Further details can be found at (www.eurocorr.org/EUROCORR+2009). There were 160 UK delegates in Edinburgh. It would be nice if even half that number turned up in Nice!

Staying on the conference theme, in my specialty area of protection by organic coatings, there are two conferences coming up this year. One is ‘Advances in Corrosion Protection by Organic Coatings’ organized by David Scantlebury and Martin Kendig (details at www.manchester.ac.uk/materials/events) which will be held in Christ’s College Cambridge from September 14th-18th. This is the college Darwin attended circa 1830 - this year is his 200th anniversary and his rooms are available for inspection! Interestingly it is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of a doyen of organics coatings research who worked at Cambridge - Dr J E O Mayne- we hope to have a dinner to commemorate this. The other is an AETOC (Advances in Electrochemical Techniques applied to Organic Coatings) occurring in Grado, near Venice in April 14th-17th This is being organised by Lorenzo Fedrizzi and further details can be found (www.uniud.it/dstc/Aetoc09).

But why go to technical conferences? Isn’t it possible these days to just sit down at a computer and get all the information on the web? Well I believe the answer to that question is No! (I will return to the general area of how to get information in another technical topics). Conferences offer a terrific opportunity to meet and talk with other workers in your field. Certainly if you are an academic (either working in a research organisation or a university), it is really essential to keep up with the field, by presenting your work and listening to others. With a few exceptions research is not a solo activity. Consideration of other people’s work is essential. But how many ICorr members are academics? Well when I was at a Science Council meeting the other day (we were helping prepare a contribution to a government call for ideas on how to put science and engineering at the heart of government) the statistic was given that 75% of Chartered Scientists are NOT academics. Although I have not checked the figure, no doubt the Institute of Corrosion has a similar profile.

I am aware that what industry likes best is very focused conferences, preferably on the particular topic that the person they send is mainly working on. But is that not short sighted? Should not technical people working in industry be exposed to more general papers as well? With the current economic downturn there may actually be a greater incentive (plus the time?) for companies to send their staff to conferences. The knowledge gained could well come in useful at a later date. It may also be a good opportunity for companies to review what they are doing and maybe break into new areas and ideas for that can come from conferences Well enough on that.

Anchor from Intrinsic of Liverpool

Certain of my readers like to see a picture or two of corrosion so I thought I’d digress to my recent holiday in Ireland. ‘The Intrinsic’ of Liverpool sank in 1836 in Kilkee bay and the iron anchor was brought to the surface some 150 years later (see picture). Interestingly it was still very recognizable and had not suffered from too much corrosion.This compares with artifacts from Sir Cloudesly Shovell’s fleet from which several ships sank in 1707 (admittedly somewhat earlier!).

Anchor at Kilkee

Information about the anchor

Divers retrieved material from the wrecks in 1969 which I examined at the BNF Metals Technology Centre in the mid 1970s. Anything that was made of iron (cannon etc) had corroded virtually away to nothing. Silver pieces of eight, brass, lead and copper items all survived.. The exact conditions in the sea will affect the corrodibility. This is also true of the atmosphere. In Ireland it rained most of the time! However most structures we saw showed very little corrosion. Lack of pollution (aside from the somewhat acidic peat bogs) must contribute to this. I will return to this topic (atmospheric corrosion) at another time. Meanwhile although the New Year has started with some degree of doom and gloom on the economic front, I am optimistic that corrosion people will still have jobs at the end of it as it must be apparent that sustainability and conserving current resources in the present climate is essential.
As usual any comments on this months column please contact
Douglas@harrbridge.freeserve.co.uk

by Technical Secretary, Douglas J Mills

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Institute Technical Forum