DALLAS — In the field of corrosion engineering, solving or alleviating problems is unfortunately sometimes handled by a reactive approach — an issue is dealt with only after it appears.
During the Plenary Lecture at NACE Corrosion 2015 on March 16 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, John R. Scully, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia, outlined how corrosion engineers can better take a proactive approach to solving the biggest issues.
At the beginning of the talk, Scully went over select corrosion issues in centuries past that were all alleviated by a reactive approach. One of these was William Thomson fixing corrosion issues resulting from high voltages with the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable in 1858 through use of a mirror galvanometer.
The resulting inquiry of a panel commissioned to investigate the cable's initial failures declared, "The mistakes of the past need not be repeated." Thomson later voiced concerns in 1875 with the hydrogen embrittlement of zinc-coated steel.
Why, then, are the same mistakes repeating themselves, nearly a century-and-a-half later?
Many times, people will want to blame a project manager, and his or her emphasis on costs and schedule over material performance.
"I like the saying: The project will be within cost, built to schedule or built to perform correctly, and pick any two you want," Scully joked. Scully also cited an "overreliance on the assumption of immunity" as it applies to materials.
Whatever blame goes around, though, the "solutions" to such problems might not help corrosion professionals at all.
"Sometimes, you do a root-cause analysis, but the project is canceled because there's a workaround," Scully said. "You never really solve the problem. And if you do solve the problem, the particular scenario may not repeat itself exactly the next time, so you don't really gain. The corrosion community doesn't really gain from that."
Scully, who formerly worked at the metallurgy department at Sandia National Laboratories before the University of Virginia, stressed the importance of using three methods in concert with each other when working with components, coatings or materials — theoretical modeling, lab testing and prognosis — to achieve a more proactive approach. He further went on to praise the benefits of field testing and theoretical modeling in conjunction with each other, but discounted their ability to work to better science on their own.
Scully is also a believer in the integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) approach, stemming from a National Academies report. This approach helps its users understand composition and microstructure of materials with a focus on a single physical property.
"I don't think it's the same as the total system performance problem we have in corrosion," Scully said. "You're looking at all the microstructural details that govern that property ... Why can’t we do that in corrosion?"
When applied to corrosion, Scully — citing a report by the Potomac Institute — believes you can do failure analysis, what-if analysis, investigation of environmental factors and rapid-damage assessment with the approach.
Finally, Scully closes with a recommendation to "throw this over the edge to the engineering scale." By this, he means that corrosion engineers need to work with civil engineers, electrical engineers and materials scientists to work more proactively.
Corrosion engineers should keep the advice of Scully in minds as they move to improve the science behind the work. If so, it's possible that they no longer repeat the mistakes of yesteryear.
