The President Writes

The President Writes

Latest News

Happy New Year! I trust you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas break. As incoming President this is my first bash at this column so please excuse me if I ramble on a bit!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m an electrochemist based at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, southwest London. Over the years my involvement with the Institute has mainly been through the Corrosion Science Division, although I have picked up a reasonable understanding of the broader range of ICorr activities during my 10+ years on Council.

Our esteemed editor, Brian Goldie, was keen to include a photo of me so that you will be able to recognise me – or more likely cross to the other side of the road when you see me coming! The only thing vaguely suitable that I could find was this promotional shot taken recently by the NPL photographer. I feel I must point out that the item I am holding is a reference electrode…and not a pregnancy test as some wags have suggested.

I would like to thank our outgoing President, Sarah Vasey, for the excellent job she has done over the past two years. Sarah has worked tirelessly on behalf of the Institute to oversee a number of important initiatives, most notably the ongoing improvements to our training courses, the appointment of a new Business Development Manager, the increase in our student membership and (with significant input from Trevor Osborne) the successful purchase of our new home at Saxon Court in Northampton. All this on top of one of the busiest day jobs I have ever seen!

It is an honour to assume the role of President and I am very much looking forward to the challenge of building on the achievements of Sarah and previous Presidents. Completing the overhaul of our training course offering will obviously be a major priority. This is by no means a trivial task but is critical to our financial sustainability. Equally important will be the continued drive to recruit younger members, who after all represent the future of the Institute. As Young ICorr Chair, Chris Bridge has done an outstanding job in growing student members (over 100 at the latest count) and I will be working closely with his successor, Simon Bowcock, to maintain this upward momentum.

Right now the Institute is in pretty good shape, thanks mainly to the unstinting efforts of enthusiastic volunteers and committees. However, there is always room for improvement and we as Trustees and Council members are continually looking for new ways to enhance our offering to members. I am keen to meet as many of you as possible during my two year term to hear your views and am looking forward to attending a wide range of local branch activities and events. If you have any ideas for future initiatives I would love to hear them. The key thing is to get involved!

Pipework Corrosion- Prediction and Reality

Latest News, London Branch

Dr Patrica Conder receiving a token of appreciation from Trevor Osborne, together with Paul Barnes, branch chairman

The January talk of ICorr London branch by Dr Patricia Conder, Sonomatic Ltd, was on “Pipework Corrosion : Prediction and Reality”, and how differences in the spatial pattern of internal pipework corrosion, be it patchy or more uniform, impacts on the effectiveness of inspection, and how this can be used to improve understanding of the underlying corrosion behaviour.

Patricia, discussed how extensive corrosion is easy to find and measure but, in instances where wall loss occurs more randomly, the challenges of matching inspection strategy to the corrosion coverage increase. She discussed how thinking of inspection of as a statistical sampling process helps both inspection strategy and analysis. The audience were challenged to spot the difference between a corroding and non-corroding circuit within a second. This was successfully achieved by means of a graphical overview of the whole circuit inspection history.

This overview presents a route to mine into the data, to examine “groupings” based on corrosion mechanisms, for example testing to see if the bends really are corroding faster than the straights. She also discussed the use of integrity driven corrosion rates, based on how the overall wall loss of the circuit is changing, rather than focusing on per inspection location corrosion rates, which can exaggerate measurement variability. Although historically inspection has been based on manual ultrasonic thickness measurements and radiography, these techniques have only covered relatively small areas overall. Developments for pipework inspection offer everything from screening to more detailed high accuracy mapping. The challenges being to incorporate all these results into a database in a meaningful way to get added value from a change in inspection approach. Patricia finished the talk by reminding us to think corrosion: think spatial.