On 9th February 2023, the branch hosted a very successful 1-day hybrid technical conference with 35 attendees, around 90% of these attending in person and the remaining electing to attend online, including representatives from AMPP. This was a special ICorr award-winner’s themed event covering 4 main themes, electrochemistry, cathodic protection, production chemistry and protective coatings, and the venue was the Birmingham Council House, located in the centre of Birmingham, a ‘stunning’ setting for the event.
It was clear that many enjoyed the network opportunities provided by this ‘face to face’ experience, which is still a bit a novelty after extended COVID restrictions of recent years. The event was priced accordingly to attract such participation. Many thanks are due to the team at HQ who handled our registrations and to the staff of the Council House who put on a ‘more than generous lunchtime spread. Bill Whittaker kindly assisted with the event planning and George Winning skilfully managed communications.
The day started with a presentation from Professor Alison Davenport, University of Birmingham School of Metallurgy and Materials, and the UR Evans Award winner. Alison developed an interest in synchrotron methods after her PhD at Cambridge, at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA, before returning to the UK to the Universities of Manchester and then Birmingham. She was awarded an OBE for services to corrosion and electrochemistry in 2018. Alison gave an extremely well-illustrated and cleverly animated talk entitled “Pitting: The delicate balance between dissolution and passivation.” The processes of corrosion pit development were explained very clearly, and it was very impactful presentation.
Chris Lynch, Senior Engineering Manager of Corrpro Europe followed this with a heartfelt talk on “Cathodic Protection Standards Making”, and of his personal journey in standards development, clearly laying out all the procedural processes and interfaces involved.
After lunch, Ken Lax Technical Director at Corroconsult UK Ltd., gave a very comprehensive summary of BS EN ISO 21857:2021 “Prevention of corrosion on pipeline systems influenced by stray currents.” He covered many aspects in his talk including, shortcomings in CP training and certification, relevance of pipe-to-soil potentials, sources of CP system interference (obvious and not so obvious), measurement techniques, circuit and data analysis, along an outline of the standard itself.
This preceded an excellent talk by George Winning of Corrosion and Chemical Consulting Ltd, who explained in detail the importance of production chemistry to the Energy Sector in all its various stages of development, and implementation, for a particular asset / production zone. George then went on to discuss the forthcoming ICorr production chemistry for corrosion engineers – PC4CE course, the contents of which have been kindly donated to ICorr by BP.
The final session took us further into coatings and coatings Standards. Chris Googan, Materials & Corrosion Engineer at Anticorrosion Engineering Ltd, provided some detailed insights into ‘Why do Protective Coatings Fail? and the various points of intervention to prevent this. Chris is a Corrosion Specialist with more than 30years experience, not only in hydrocarbon production, refining, chemicals, and petrochemicals, but also in also shipping, automotive, defence, power generation, water, civil engineering, legal and insurance sectors. Simon Daly, a consultant for the Safinah Group in Gateshead, then went on to describe some unique challenges for selecting coatings for the fixed and floating offshore wind industry. He considered the various types of structures, corrosion categories, corrosion protection methods, coating specifications, influences, and possible improvements. Malcolm Morris, Technical Manager with the Protective & Marine Coatings division of Sherwin-Williams, closed this very informative session with an ‘Update on International Standards Activity within the Protective Coatings Sector’, carefully explaining the hierarchy of standards and all recent updates.
As part of the day’s proceedings, a Certificate of Appreciation was given to Winston Shepherd in recognition of a lifetime contribution to the Corrosion Industry and Standards Development.
The combined presentations for this event can be found at Midlands Branch – Institute of Corrosion (icorr.org) Local Technical Programme.
This extensive programme raised many interesting and thought-provoking questions by Attendees on the day, if fact too many to list in detail here.
Q&A Feedback
We wish to offer a clarification on behalf of AMPP to our event attendees in connection with a question raised in the context of standards development, that NACE/AMPP ‘standards’ are not Standards as such, because they are not issued by a national standards body, e.g. BSI in UK.AMPP have supplied the following clarification to us:
• AMPP (Association of Materials Protection and Performance) is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) accredited Standards Development Organisation (SDO). ANSI is a non-profit organisation that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standards, and conformity assessment system. Founded in 1918, the Institute works in close collaboration with stakeholders from industry and government to identify and develop standards and conformance-based solutions to national and global priorities. ANSI is the sole U.S. representative and full member of ISO, and, as a founding member, plays an active role in ISO’s governance and technical work. Thus, AMPP’s standards development process is therefore accredited by ISO through ANSI.
• AMPP, like ASTM, SAE, and many others, develop consensus standards as an accredited SDO, and as such the TM (Test Method), SP (Standard Practice) and MR (Materials Recommendations) published by AMPP are Standards which can be, and are, deployed globally. AMPP Standards are available for use internationally and can be cited in regulatory requirements. The subject matter experts developing the standards, and those on the consensus body are international, and indeed some standards have been inaugurated from SMEs outside the USA e.g. China, which have then developed with global participation. ANSI undertook a thorough audit of
AMPP’s procedures in their SDO activities soon after the formation of the Association, maintaining their accredited standards developer status.
• In the USA, ANSI oversees SDO’s who issue the standards. For any additional clarification required, please contact Brad Wilder, Director – Standards brad.wilder@ampp.org
For additional clarification, AMPP have the following active document types:
Standard Practices (SP)
SPs define the requirements and recommendations for the selection, design, installation, or operation of a material or system and provide detailed descriptions of requirements for quality of a product or process that can be incorporated into a procurement document.
Standard Test Methods (TM)
TMs contain procedures for conducting tests to ascertain the characteristics of a material, design, or operation. TMs do not include pass/fail criteria for the material, design, or operation being evaluated by the TM; these criteria may be provided in SPs or MRs.
Standard Material Requirements (MR)
MRs define the required or recommended characteristics of a material. MRs may include requirements for chemical composition, mechanical properties, physical properties, performance properties, and other aspects of the material’s manufacture and use.
Guides (GUIDE)
Guides present the user with information about alternative procedures, materials, or technologies that enable the user to select the best option for a specific use. They may contain recommendations to assist the user to make an informed decision based on the desired outcome.
Technical Reports (TR)
TRs document practices, procedures, and technologies. They may include compilations of reference data, historical information, surveys of common practices, bibliographies on special subjects, educational material, and information on health, safety, and environmental protection
We apologise to AMPP for any misunderstandings in this regard and thank them for their valued input.
Following on from the event we are pleased to announce a new Midlands Branch chair Bill Whittaker has become the chair of the Midlands Branch, and he brings a wealth of experience to the role and will be a great asset to our Organisation. He is currently a Cathodic Protection Engineer with Cathodic Protection Engineering Ltd (CPEL). He started in the corrosion industry in 2005 as a technician, and over time progressed into engineering.
Following a brief stint offshore, Bill’s expertise is with Cathodic Protection of onshore pipelines and near shore structures. He has an active involvement in ICORR CP training activities being a member of the CP governing board and the training CP scheme manager.
He holds an MSc in Corrosion Control Engineering from Manchester University, is ICorr CP Level 4 certified (buried and marine sectors), and is also AMPP (formally NACE) CP4 certified.
The branch committee, and recent past chairs Ashley Ingram and Paul Segers, should be thanked for giving their time freely to ICorr, and for their ongoing support to our AGMs. Bill may be contacted at: midlandschair@icorr.org
Birmingham Council chamber.
Professor Alison Davenport opening proceeding.
Lunchtime networking in the Chamberlain room.
Presentation to Winston Shepherd by ICorr President Stephen Tate.
A very welcome ‘face to face’ meeting opportunity after Covid-19 impacts.
