Friday 24th April is World Corrosion Awareness Day. This year, it will be a little different. We’re battling coronavirus, and many of you reading this will be in lockdown. You’ll be stuck indoors with little to do. By now, your children might be driving you insane.
This year’s World Corrosion Awareness Day is a great opportunity to relieve some of the tedium – and for households to do their bit in the battle against the devastating effects of corrosion.
Though the world is on hold, corrosion isn’t
Even when corrosion engineers aren’t locked in their homes, corrosion works to destroy our world. When we ignore corrosion control in infrastructure and transport, the result is often a human catastrophe. When bridges collapse and airplanes break apart, people lose their lives.
Eventually (hopefully soon), we will beat coronavirus. When the pandemic is a distant memory, corrosion will still be costing lives and money. Which is why engineers and scientists will continue to develop strategies, tools, and techniques to fight back against corrosion.
Here at the Institute of Corrosion, our aims include increasing awareness of corrosion, improving corrosion education, and sharing our expertise with the world. So, with World Corrosion Awareness Day in mind – and understanding how different the day will be for pretty much everyone on the planet this year – in this blog you’ll learn how to conduct a simple experiment to keep your kids amused and help them learn more about the world in which we live.
Amaze your children with a simple corrosion experiment
Here’s a little interactive experiment you can do with your kids to show the effects of corrosion, and just how quickly corrosion happens. You’ll need three clean jars, some water, some oil, some Epsom salts, and three clean steel nails. Here’s what to do:
Pour some Epsom salts into the first jar, and drop a nail onto the Epsom salts. Screw the lid onto the jar.
Pour some boiled water that has been cooled into the second jar. Drop a nail into the water, and then cover the water with oil. Put the lid on the jar.
Pour non-boiled water into the third jar, and drop a nail into it. Screw the lid on the jar.
Explain to your children that:
The first jar is air but no water. The Epsom salts draw any moisture out of the air in the jar, so it is very dry.
In the second jar, the nail is in water, but there is no air because the oil prevents the air from combining with the water. You boiled the water to remove as much air from it as possible.
In the third jar, water and air can get to the nail.
After a few days, your children will notice that the steel nails in the first two jars have not corroded. In the third jar, the steel nail will have started to rust. This shows that both air and water are necessary for steel to rust.
Corrosion-proof your home on World Corrosion Awareness Day
Now that you have taught your children how metal corrodes, it’s time to teach them how to prevent corrosion. This is your chance to keep them busy on World Corrosion Awareness Day (and beyond).
Your children know that it takes air and water for metal to corrode. Ask them what items around the home – including in your shed, your garden, and your driveway – are metal. Lead them through to the discovery that painted metal items are protected against air and water.
Ask your children if they want your garden benches and tables to corrode. Buckets and spades, garden fences and gates, door handles, and so on. Lead them on a hunt around the house and garden to find metal items that are not coated or painted, or that have been affected by rust.
Then, supervise your children as they clean and dry metal items, removing any corrosion, and painting items with anticorrosive paint.
This year’s World Corrosion Awareness Day is the perfect opportunity to teach your children about corrosion and get them involved in doing all those anticorrosion jobs you have been promising to do for months. Family time with a real end-product – beautifully painted metal items that are protected against corrosion.
The earlier we promote corrosion awareness, the more likely we are to reduce its human and financial cost. For advanced corrosion prevention training for corrosion professionals, contact the Institute of Corrosion to learn about our latest training initiatives – online and in person.
How to Benefit from Institute of Corrosion T&D Initiatives Online
With the coronavirus lockdown firmly in place in most parts of the world, businesses and people are adjusting to the new normal. One of the hardest hit business activities is training and development. This is bad for businesses and their employees. Of course, the safety of employees is critical but so, too, is the continual upskilling and development of those employees.
Given that your professional development is key to both your career and the future of your employer, what has been the response by businesses and how can you keep your career on track?
3 Training and Development Strategies Adopted by Businesses
Generally, we’ve seen three approaches to training and development during the lockdown:
1. Suspend/cancel training & development
Some businesses have drastically cut back or even cancelled all their training and development. They have done this to reduce costs. Some of these companies have laid off staff and are seeking to recruit experienced people to help them through this difficult period. (Staffing Future is the first company we know that has developed a not-for-profit recruitment website to match people to jobs that suit their skills specifically for COVID-19 jobs in the UK and the United States.)
2. Transition training & development as an online resource
Other businesses are helping their employees adjust to online working and encouraging continuation of CPD by transitioning existing training and development as an online resource. Such organisations are using working from home as an initiator to encourage upskilling toward a new normal that is likely to include more working from home – even after the lockdown has ended.
3. Increase accessibility to training & development
The third business model is increasing capacity and accessibility to training and development. The issue that many businesses have here is that their IT capability is already stretched. They simply don’t have the bandwidth to offer the desired depth and breadth of training and development to an army of employees wishing to connect via video.
Online Training & Development with the Institute of Corrosion
Organisations have been forced to prioritise their approach to training and development – for both what they believe is needed and what they can reasonably provide. This has necessarily meant that much training and development has been postponed or cancelled. The knock-on effect for individuals is that their own CPD – and therefore their career path – has been put on ice.
As a not-for-profit organisation committed to continuous development of knowledge and expertise within a supportive and inclusive framework (read about our core values here), the Institute of Corrosion is adjusting to the current lockdown environment at pace. We understand that it is imperative for industry professionals and members of the Institute of Corrosion to continue to develop professionally.
Training and development initiatives that we have in place include:
The Industrial Coating Applicator Training Scheme (ICATS) ICA module is now available online. You can learn the theoretical aspects of application and complete all the tests within the programme from the comfort of your own home during lockdown. For further information, please email Kevin Harold at Kev@paintel.co.uk.
One of our training partners, Corrodere, specialise in providing training packages developed with industry experts to ensure that users gain insight into basic corrosion, methods of surface treatment and application of protective coatings – with many of its courses available through online training. Contact Corrodere for more information.
We are working with other training providers to enable you to continue your professional development during lockdown. For example, IMechE Argyll Ruane are working on the delivery of an online classroom-style training programme. Further announcements will be made as soon as this is available, but please email argyllruane@imeche.org for more information.
We’re also in the process of transitioning the Fundamentals of Corrosion course for delivery online. Please, if you are interested in learning more and participating online, contact admin@icorr.org.
5 Benefits of Online Training
Because you are working from home or furloughed, you don’t need to put your professional development on hold. In fact, the online training and development initiatives we have already released and those that we are working on will help you develop a broader appeal as the world returns to work. The benefits of online training include:
More affordable – online training and development can generally be delivered at reduced rates (and sometimes free, as with our Corrosion Engineering Division Working Day, which is now being held online)
More flexible – adaptable to different learning styles and flexible to fit your personal timetable
More convenient – take your course with you wherever you are, and balance between your work and free time
More comfortable – if you don’t like sitting in classrooms, you’ll love learning in the comfort of your own home
Improves career prospects – with more time on your hands and more flexibility to learn, taking online courses during the COVID-19 lockdown will demonstrate your commitment as well as provide valuable skills and knowledge that will help to develop your career
Make sure your career stays on track. Stay tuned to the Institute of Corrosion blog to learn of the latest developments in training and development in the corrosion industry.
The Real Cost of Poor Corrosion Prevention Practices Is Human
The financial cost of corrosion to the global economy is enormous, and estimated to be more than 3% of global GDP. Corrosion control is essential to reducing this cost, and is critical within infrastructure and transport. The economic benefits of longer life of transport and infrastructure assets are clear. Therefore, it is crucial that governments and businesses invest in corrosion control.
However, there is a far bigger reason why the Institute of Corrosion is leading the global corrosion conversation. People’s lives depend upon it.
Catastrophe is the real cost of infrastructure corrosion
In August 2015, the catastrophic effects of a lack of corrosion management was made abundantly clear in Italy. During a violent storm in Genoa, the Morandi Bridge collapsed. 43 people lost their lives. It is not as if the disaster could not have been foreseen. Its designer Riccardo Morandi warned of the risk of corrosion to the bridge all the way back in 1979. He said:
“Sooner or later, maybe in a few years, it will be necessary to resort to a treatment consisting of the removal of all traces of rust on the exposure of the reinforcements, to fill in the patches.”
Indeed, of all infrastructure, bridge collapses have been one of the most common examples of the cost of lack of corrosion control. Other notable bridge collapses include the following tragedies:
Silver Bridge, on a major highway in the United States, collapsed under the weight of rush hour traffic one afternoon in December 1967. A total of 75 vehicles crashed into the Ohio River. Nine people were seriously injured. 46 people were killed. The cause? Corrosion fatigue of the bridge’s suspension chain.
The pedestrian section of the Gokhale Bridge in Mumbai collapsed in July 2019 due to corrosion, killing one person and injuring four others.
Preliminary evidence points to corrosion as the cause for the sudden collapse of the Nanfang’ao Bridge in Taiwan. One of only two bifurcated single-arch bridges in the world – and only 20 years old – the 320-ton bridge killed six people when it fell in October 2019.
Inevitably, when corrosion control is ignored or mismanaged on highway bridges, buildings and other infrastructure, that infrastructure is weakened and lives are put at risk.
Corrosion causes tragedy in transport disasters
Corrosion is also a huge financial cost to the transport economy. Components that corrode must be repaired or replaced, and can cause breakdown and costly delays. Massive ships have enabled vast amounts of goods to be transported around the world, but they only last around 30 years before they must be scrapped due to the effects of corrosion.
Once more, though, the financial cost pales into insignificance when compared to the human cost of poor corrosion management. Examples include:
In October 1992, an El Al Boeing 747 crashed into an apartment block in Amsterdam killing more than 100 people. It had taken off only five minutes earlier. Corroded components were found to be the culprit, causing an engine and its pylon to separate from the wing. This engine hit a second engine, causing it to separate, too.
Join the corrosion control conversation
The first of our core values is Trust and Respect. The Institute of Corrosion is an independent professional body, trusted and respected by the public with the goal of reducing the environmental impact of corrosion on our infrastructure.
It is crucial that we encourage the innovation that enables greater sustainability of our infrastructure and transport. Developments in corrosion science, prevention and management should reduce (and, eventually, eliminate) the cost of corrosion to society.
To this end, we have designed this year’s Corrosion Engineering Division (CED) Working Day around corrosion control in transport and infrastructure. Held on 29th April 2020, only five days after Worldwide Corrosion Awareness Day, the original venue could not have been more appropriate – the meeting was to be held at the National Railway Museum, York. However, as you know, world events have overtaken us this year. Consequently, we are now holding the Working Day online.
It remains a fantastic opportunity to network with other professionals from different industry sectors (albeit through cyberspace and not face-to-face) and to learn about some of the latest developments in the field of corrosion control in a variety of transport and infrastructure applications across diverse industries.
This full day event will now be free. We have an excellent group of speakers lined up, including Phillip Watkinson (Corrocoat), Chris Atkins (Mott MacDonald), Steve Paterson (Arbeadie Consultants), Cliff Harris and Clive Harrison (Jacobs), and Pablo Merino (CLH Pipeline Systems). The series of lectures will cover:
Fascinating Uses of Heavy Duty Glassflake Coatings in Transport Applications
Innovations in Preserving Transport Infrastructure
Managing Corrosion in Ageing Offshore Infrastructures
Corrosion Monitoring of Dry Fuel Storage Containers in Nuclear Facilities
A New CP Approach on Non-Isolated and Aged Pipelines: A Case Study
If you are interested in taking part, please send an email to admin@icorr.org by 24th April. In return we will send you a link to be able to join the meeting. Please also indicate which working group discussion you would like to join in the afternoon.
What engineer training is best for young engineers?
Despite the UK government pushing engineering as a career choice in 2018 (the ‘Year of Engineering’), apprenticeship starts fell by 2.5% in engineering and manufacturing technologies between 2017/18 and 2018/19 (House of Commons Library Apprenticeship Statistics). That’s bad news in a sector that is suffering from a skills shortage, and in which it is estimated that 203,000 people with Level 3+ engineering skills will be required each year to 2024 to keep pace with demand.
To combat the skills shortage in UK engineering, it is incumbent on the industry to ensure that young engineers have access to the very best engineer training opportunities. Here at the Institute of Corrosion we are committed to professional development and training, with a particular focus on our early career members.
In this article, you’ll learn more about one of the most prestigious training initiatives for young engineers – the Young Engineer Programme (YEP).
Investing in the future
At the back end of 2018, IMechE Argyll Ruane noted that ICorr are investing in the future with initiatives that focus on attracting the younger people from our community. It noted the success of Young ICorr, the redevelopment of inspector training, and the new engineer training programmes such as ‘Fundamentals of Corrosion’.
The Young Engineer Programme is pivotal in the development of young engineers.
What is the Young Engineer Programme?
Designed for the engineer who has been practicing in industry for a few years but wishes to develop their skills and knowledge more broadly, the Young Engineer Programme is an 11-month programme run every two years.
The 2018 programme reached its climax in November 2018, when teams presented to a judging panel, with the winning team crowned and given its reward – a trip to the NACE Corrosion Conference & Expo 2019.
How could the Young Engineer Programme benefit you?
The Young Engineer Programme provides a threefold process of learning:
Delegates receive a series of lectures from industry experts in a range of subjects. This helps them broaden their own knowledge outside their own specific area of industry.
Delegates then work in ‘project teams’ of four. The objective is to collaborate to discuss a real-world corrosion case study provided by an industry partner and come up with a practical engineering solution.
The teams make a presentation of their findings to a panel of ICorr judges and the winning team gets to attend the NACE Corrosion Conference the following year.
In this way, delegates broaden their knowledge, improve their collaborative and project management skills, and develop their communication skills.
Other benefits of becoming a delegate on the Young Engineer Programme include expansion of your professional network and, of course, a major plus on your CV.
You receive mentoring throughout the Young Engineer Programme
With the group of young engineers split into teams of four, each team is assigned a dedicated mentor. It is the mentor’s job to ensure that their team stays on track and works as a team. The mentor will make sure that the team answers the questions raised by the case study.
As a delegate, you and your team will meet face-to-face with your mentor during the May to November period of the programme. You’ll also meet with your mentor on Skype, and the mentor can ask the author of the case study any questions that your team may have.
What do delegates say about engineer training during the Young Engineer Programme?
Word gets out when engineer training does what it says on the tin – and then some. Responses from 2018 delegates included:
“This programme has altered the way I think about my work and how I carry it out.”
“I hadn’t realised the value of ICorr and I will go back to work on Monday and encourage them to engage.”
A senior engineer in the ICorr fraternity said:
“This is probably the most important function in the UK Corrosion calendar, it’s truly fantastic.”
How do you join the Young Engineer Programme?
The Young Engineer Programme runs every two years. We open the programme to applicants in the September of the year before the programme starts and email our entire membership about the programme prior to this. We also send personal emails to the engineering community.
The programme has exploded in popularity. In 2018, there were 12 delegates in three teams of four who presented their findings on the case study. The current crop numbers eight teams of four. We expect programme applicant numbers to increase further next time round.
To ensure you learn of the next Young Engineer Programme at the earliest opportunity, we recommend that you become a member of the Institute of Corrosion. There are several grades of membership.
The Young Engineer Programme – a summary
As a ‘cradle to grave’ organisation, we support our members with engineer training throughout their career, from apprenticeship to Chartered Engineer status. Young ICorr (aimed at young professionals aged 35 and under) has an expanding membership base, supported by ICorr initiatives such as our free student membership.
The Young Engineer Programme is an invaluable addition to our training initiatives, helping you to expand your knowledge and network, improve your competencies and capabilities, and add prestigious training and development experience to your CV.
Recent infrastructure failures such as Genoa Bridge collapse, which killed 43 people and caused major disruption, highlights the need for effective corrosion monitoring and protection and to embrace good corrosion maintenance processes as an integral part of asset construction and maintenance. Corrosion protection is valuable in preventing unplanned production stoppages or safety risks as a result of asset performance reduction. Assets such as bridges, platforms and critical physical infrastructure require corrosion protection and monitoring as an integral part of the maintenance programme throughout the life of the asset.
University of Salford will be hosting this event at its Media City Campus. Events bring together experts in Lean Construction, Process Innovation and Corrosion specialists. The key focus is to raise awareness among Supply Chain contractors of the importance Corrosion Protection for the whole life cost of assets, as well as develop an understanding about their requirements, with a view to reduce defects and reworks, which often results in delays, cost overruns and increased H&S risks for the project. Panel discussion and group exercises will focus on use of innovative strategies to involve specialist sub-contractors’ expertise in early design and planning stages, using lean principles as a framework to integrate entire supply chain.
Date: Thursday 8th Nov, 2018
Time: 9:30am – 4:00pm
Location: Room 0.11 Media City Campus (Next to BBC studios), Salford Quays, University of Salford, Salford M50 2HE,
Agenda
9:30 – 10:00
Continental Breakfast and Networking
10:00 – 10:10
Welcome & Event Introduction
Dr. Zeeshan Aziz, University of Salford
10:10 – 10:25
Understanding the Importance of Corrosion Protection for the whole life cost of assets
Lucia Fullalove,
BSc, MSc, FICorr – Fullalove & Associates
10:25 – 10:40
The effects of Corrosion from a maintenance engineer point of view
A new Fundamentals of Corrosion course is presented by the Institute of Corrosion. The course will be based on practical information and hands-on examples as well as relevant background theory. Attendees on the course will be given a wide ranging introduction to all the major aspects of corrosion engineering.
Successful completion of the course and the associated examination will required for obtaining Professional membership of ICorr for those without either formal qualifications in corrosion or the relevant time experience.
Who is the course for?
The course will be suitable for engineers, paint inspectors, designers, technicians and scientists wishing to expand their career opportunities into the corrosion field or wanting to broaden or refresh their knowledge of corrosion in general.
Civil, mechanical, chemical and naval engineers will find the course aids their ability to assess potential or actual corrosion situations and to be able build anti-corrosion measures and strategies into their projects. It will also help to understand the mechanisms and causes of common premature failures.
The course will take place over a 5 day period in a classroom format; four days being talks and practical sessions and the fifth day being a short review and the examination. There will be opportunities to ask questions at all times during the course.Course Content.
The course will include:
Corrosion of common metals.
Basic corrosion science.
Common corrosion mechanisms; galvanic, crevice, pitting, deposition, corrosion under deposit/lagging, stress corrosion and cracking.
The electrochemical series and its practical uses.
Methods for preventing or managing corrosion, including Inhibitors/passivation.
The course will be presented by Dr Jane Lomas (FICorr).
Jane is an experienced corrosion & coatings engineer at Amtec Consultants Ltd with a multi-disciplinary background. She has over 30 years practical experience of marine corrosion and building coatings issues, from project design, through new building to guarantee claims; ongoing coating maintenance problems and repair issues.
She also works on a global basis with failure investigations and product liability claims in the automotive, industrial, aerospace and water treatment industries as an investigator and problem solver.
Jane manages multi-company projects for both R&D purposes and claims cases and also runs the laboratory at Amtec.
Fellow – Institute of Corrosion (FICorr)
Honorary Secretary, Trustee and Council Member of ICorr.
Guest Presenter:
Dr Les Callow is a metallurgist and corrosion engineer with over 40 years practical experience of corrosion across a wide range of industries.
Currently, he is primarily working as a technical expert for many litigation cases and appears at arbitration, court, etc, as an expert witness.
The Fundamentals of Corrosion for Engineers will be held on 9th to 13th October 2017 between 09.30 and 17.00 each day at Elcometer Ltd, Droylsden, Manchester.
The cost will be £950 + VAT per person and includes lunches and refreshments on each day. Participants will need to arrange their own accommodation and information on local hotels, etc can be provided on request.
Due to the size of the room available, this course will be limited to 10 people, so early booking is recommended.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
