RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN CORROSION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. FA8501-06-D-0001 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Defense and by awards 0840104 from the National Science Foundation and DE-FG02-08ER46534 from the Department of Energy. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN CORROSION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
DAVID J. DUQUETTE,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Co-Chair
ROBERT E. SCHAFRIK,
GE Aviation,
Co-Chair
AZIZ I. ASPHAHANI,
Carus Corporation (retired)
GORDON P. BIERWAGEN,
North Dakota State University
DARRYL P. BUTT,
Boise State University
GERALD S. FRANKEL,
Ohio State University
ROGER C. NEWMAN,
University of Toronto
SHARI N. ROSENBLOOM,
Exponent Failure Analysis Associates, Inc.
LYLE H. SCHWARTZ (NAE),
University of Maryland
JOHN R. SCULLY,
University of Virginia
PETER F. TORTORELLI,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
DAVID TREJO,
Oregon State University
DARREL F. UNTEREKER,
Medtronic, Inc.
MIRNA URQUIDI-MACDONALD,
Pennsylvania State University
Staff
ERIK B. SVEDBERG, Study Director
EMILY ANN MEYER, Study Co-director (January 2009 to January 2010)
TERI THOROWGOOD, Administrative Coordinator (until December 2009)
LAURA TOTH, Program Assistant
RICKY D. WASHINGTON, Executive Assistant
NATIONAL MATERIALS ADVISORY BOARD
ROBERT H. LATIFF,
R. Latiff Associates,
Chair
LYLE H. SCHWARTZ,
University of Maryland,
Vice Chair
PETER R. BRIDENBAUGH,
Alcoa, Inc. (retired)
L. CATHERINE BRINSON,
Northwestern University
VALERIE BROWNING,
ValTech Solutions, LLC
JOHN W. CAHN,
University of Washington
YET MING CHIANG,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
GEORGE T. GRAY III,
Los Alamos National Laboratory
SOSSINA M. HAILE,
California Institute of Technology
CAROL A. HANDWERKER,
Purdue University
ELIZABETH HOLM,
Sandia National Laboratories
DAVID W. JOHNSON, JR.,
Stevens Institute of Technology
TOM KING,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
KENNETH H. SANDHAGE,
Georgia Institute of Technology
ROBERT E. SCHAFRIK,
GE Aviation
STEVEN WAX,
Strategic Analysis, Inc.
Staff
DENNIS I. CHAMOT, Acting Director
ERIK SVEDBERG, Senior Program Officer
HEATHER LOZOWSKI, Financial Associate
LAURA TOTH, Program Assistant
RICKY D. WASHINGTON, Executive Assistant
Preface
Corrosion science and engineering is a complex and broad subject that is not well defined and is still evolving as the subject itself expands beyond the traditional one, “the destructive oxidation of metals,” to the subject of this report, “environmentally induced degradation of a material that involves a chemical reaction.” The newer subject matter encompasses a wide spectrum of environments and all classes of materials, not just metals, and it intentionally excludes degradation due to nonchemical processes such as creep, fatigue, and tribology.
Some technologists perceive the corrosion research field as moribund, but others, including the members of the National Research Council’s Committee on Research Opportunities in Corrosion Science and Engineering, see the field quite differently—as exciting, poised to make huge leaps. This optimism is based on many converging forces, including the better understanding of nanometer-level chemical processes, instrumentation not previously available that enables the investigation of various phenomena, advances in heuristic- and physics-based materials modeling and simulation, and—especially important—societal expectations that the quality of life will continue to improve in all dimensions.
The degree to which the committee successfully addressed its ambitious charge—to posit grand challenges for corrosion science and engineering and to suggest a national strategy to meet them—will be judged by the readers of this report. The committee hopes that this report will catalyze action to revitalize the corrosion science and engineering field.
Developing a national strategy for any technical field is a highly ambitious goal, as is prioritizing the work that must be done to realize that strategy across all the
federal agencies. During its deliberations, the committee realized that thrusts in corrosion science and engineering research must be linked to engineering applications in order to focus research and development efforts. What the committee was able to do was to develop a framework for a national strategy by identifying four corrosion grand challenges that serve as an approach to organizing new basic and applied corrosion research. Because most of the engineering applications in aggressive environments historically used metals, the committee was able to identify more corrosion research opportunities related to metals than to nonmetals. To the extent that it could do so, and based on the experience of its members and the information provided to it, the committee also identified corrosion research opportunities for other materials systems. It expects that an appropriate mechanistic understanding of environmental degradation of nonmetals will lead to proactive approaches to avoiding corrosion or mitigating its effects, basing its ideas on the long experience with corrosion in metallic systems. However, although a few specific such activities are cited in this report, it will be the work of another body to identify research needs and opportunities related to corrosion in nonmetallic systems.
Constituted in the fall of 2008, the committee was given the following the tasks:
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Identify opportunities and advance scientific and engineering understanding of the mechanisms involved in corrosion processes, environmental materials degradation, and their mitigation.
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Identify and prioritize a set of research grand challenges that would fill the gaps in emerging scientific and engineering issues.
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Recommend a national strategy for fundamental corrosion research to gain a critical understanding of (1) degradation of materials by the environment and (2) technologies for mitigating this degradation. The strategy should recommend how best to disseminate the outcomes of corrosion research and incorporate them into corrosion mitigation.
The committee, which was composed of experts in the field as well as generalists and experts in complementary disciplines, explored accomplishments in corrosion research and its effects and assessed needs and opportunities that could be addressed by future research. The full committee met four times between December 2008 and September 2009: on December 18-19, 2008, at the National Academies’ Keck Center in Washington, D.C.; April 1-2, 2009, at the National Academies’ Beckman Center in Irvine, California; June 15-17, 2009, at the National Academies’ Keck Center in Washington, D.C.; and September 1-2, 2009, at the J. Erik Jonsson Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The committee also held town hall sessions at the annual meetings of the National Association of Corrosion Engineers and the Minerals, Metals, and
Materials Society to raise the technical community’s awareness of this study, and it prepared a questionnaire to solicit input from the corrosion community.
This report complements the recent National Research Council report Assessment of Corrosion Education (The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009). Five of the present committee’s 14 members either served on the committee that wrote the 2009 report or participated as peer reviewers of that report.
The main body of the present report comprises five chapters. Chapter 1, “Corrosion—Its Influence and Control,” sets the stage for the remaining four chapters of the report. It defines “corrosion,” describes its societal impact, and discusses some of the successes of corrosion R&D. Chapter 2, “Grand Challenges for Corrosion Research,” describes the process the committee used to develop the framework of grand challenges, lists the challenges, and then prioritizes them. Chapter 3, “Research Opportunities,” presents examples of basic research (the foundation of addressing all the grand challenges) and applied research that can significantly advance understanding of corrosion and mitigation of its effects, and also describes examples of instrumentation and techniques pertinent to progress in characterizing corrosion processes. Chapter 4, “Dissemination of the Outcomes of Corrosion Research,” addresses technology transfer. The last chapter, “A National Strategy for Corrosion Research,” summarizes the key findings and recommendations of the report. The six appendixes contain the statement of task (A); results of the committee’s questionnaire on corrosion mitigation (B); a discussion on the modeling of corrosion (C); definitions of the acronyms used in the report (D); a summary of current government programs relating to corrosion (E); and biographies of the committee members (F).
David J. Duquette and Robert E. Schafrik, Co-Chairs
Committee on Research Opportunities in Corrosion Science and Engineering
Acknowledgments
The Department of Defense Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office initially requested this study. It was ultimately sponsored by that office and by the National Science Foundation, Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation within the Engineering Directorate and the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences.
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Fiona M. Doyle, University of California,
Jeremy L. Gilbert, Syracuse University,
Thomas P. Moffat, National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Joe H. Payer, University of Akron,
Kathleen Taylor, General Motors Corporation (retired),
Shelby F. Thames, University of Southern Mississippi, and
Gary Was, University of Michigan.
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by George Dieter, emeritus professor of mechanical engineering, the Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering at the University of Maryland. Appointed by the National Research Council (NRC), he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
The committee also thanks the guest speakers at its meetings, who added to the members’ understanding of corrosion and the issues surrounding it:
Graham E.C. Bell, Schiff Associates,
Stanley A. Brown, U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
Luz Marina Calle, National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Ram Darolia, Consultant,
Daniel Dunmire, Department of Defense,
Brian Gleeson, University of Pittsburgh,
Jonathan Martin, National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Joe H. Payer, University of Akron,
Lewis Sloter, Department of Defense,
John Vetrano, Department of Energy, and
Paul Virmani, Department of Transportation.
In addition, the committee thanks the corrosion experts who attended its town meetings and those who responded to its online questionnaire. Their candid comments were instrumental in allowing the committee to achieve a balanced understanding of the research and development needed to advance the field.
The excellent support of the NRC staff is especially appreciated. Special thanks go to Erik Svedberg, who was indispensable to our accomplishing this study.