I feel a bit like Neil Armstrong -- or perhaps Buzz Aldrin, if Latanision has got his thoughts collected together sooner than I ! Stepping into this Internet conference and pretending to be a leader is, to say the least, daunting. And with everyone "watching" too! There is no doubt that this is a new frontier, and I suppose one of our challenges is to ruminate on whether what is behind it is likely to be productive to the better understanding and control of corrosion.

Understanding, did I write? On no, I see our title does not include that! And it was with that thought that I found my feet on this new terrain!

It is interesting that the two keynoters chosen for InterCorr/96 spend much of their energies persuading granting agencies to support the understanding of corrosion phenomena. The conventional wisdom dictates that only when a natural phenomenon is understood can it be truly controlled. Materials engineers are keen on this, as it is not necessarily part of the classical engineering ethic to understand phenomena, although that certainly helps.

There are many examples of serious industrial problems caused by the lack of people who do not understand how they operate. The iron blast furnace is a case in point. Due to retirements, downsizing and the like, the typical iron blast furnace is operated by people who really do not understand the detailed operation of this centuries-old technology. So it is not surprising that blast furnaces blow up from time to time!

Corrosion failures are almost always like that. Designers and operators do not understand simple concepts, such as the galvanic effect of dissimilar metals. Which is great for consulting corrosion engineers such as the organizers of this conference. I note that the "by-line" of NACE International now reads "Informing the World on Corrosion Control" This is a noble mission, and should do much to remove basic ignorance of control techniques. But will it ultimately reduce the total cost of corrosion? I trust I may be forgiven for opining that merely "informing" will most  likely provide more business for corrosion engineers!

My experience to date with Internet discussion groups such as CORROS-L suggests the net to be an excellent medium to post simple questions and obtain unqualified answers. Quite often, however, the question is rarely simple and the answers are always incomplete. It would be difficult for it to be otherwise. Sometimes, follow up queries supply missing detail and the answers get a little more useful, but a true solution is really impossible. When students come to me describing a corrosion problem with a great aunt's cookware, I can rarely be very helpful. I need to see the items, and it would be best to see auntie actually using them!

But what about an Internet Conference such as this? This will be a challenge, and one which I am pleased to support -- a least until I can assess its true utility. Will the Conference suffer from problems similar to the discussion groups? Or will it really be a Journal in virtual form? If it be the latter, it might have been better to send the submissions to the on-line Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering, since we surely do not need two on corrosion so soon! I sincerely hope that it will be a conference, and the organizers have provided a mechanism for comments and questions from those dropping in on the event.

To return to "understanding" and "controlling", I find the only types of conference from which I return with greater understanding are those of the Gordon Research Conference variety. I need quality time alone or hiking or golfing with a like-minded colleague before I get any measure of understanding. The typical technical conference is an information transmission/sharing activity. But there is rarely any chance for improved understanding.

At this conference we are not asked to develop understanding, but I sincerely hope that some will ultimately develop! But for now, permit me to "keynote" what we still need to know about corrosion phenomena in order for the engineering community to encounter less of it.

As it relates to this Conference's theme of "Assessment and prediction of corrosion, pitting and crevice attack" my personal list would include the following:

1. How do we ensure that laboratory measurements accurately predict the behaviour of materials in real environments?

2. How can we develop alloys with improved localized corrosion resistance- and if we find alloy compositions which appear to achieve this, is industry prepared to develop such alloys commercially?

3. What types of commercial treatment will improve the localized corrosion resistance of materials currently available, and under what conditions ?

4. How do we educate design engineers to ensure that they incorporate current understanding of corrosion susceptibility in their designs and materials selection criteria ?

My approach to most of these questions would be to first try to understand what is involved in each case, but perhaps answers can be found more empirically.

In considering how this conference might tackle such questions, it is obvious that it will take more than the submission and critical review of a set of manuscripts. The dissemination of relevant discussion and personal analyses is necessary for any true assessment. Consequently, I hope that the conference organizers be able to collect and disseminate through the "feedback forms" the kind of critical discussion traditionally found, for example, in Discussions of the Faraday Society. The proceedings volumes of all topical conferences in which I have played a leadership role have included details of the discussions created by individual papers as an important adjunct to those papers, confirming my conviction that the only way to fully evaluate any piece of science is to be able to appreciate the extent of agreement with its major findings. I cannot imagine any other way in which to find useful answers to the questions posed above!

Finally, we must recognize one significant difference between this Internet Conference and one held in the regular convened meeting format. It is a type of floating crap game. Submissions, reviews and discussions proceed somewhat independently. So it will be difficult to know when we are "done"! This is probably a good thing, because we will never be truly "done", and both the consulting corrosion engineers and the grant applicants can breath collective sighs of relief.

Gentle websurfer, if you have scrolled this far, please take the opportunity to check out (i.e. read and digest!) those papers in the individual technical sessions which appeal to you, and if you can contribute a comment or question, please do so. That is the only way to make this a conference. Likewise, I would appreciate your thoughts on the more philosophical content my own first "moon landing."

The challenge, now that your keynoters have played their oboe, is to ensure that each member of our orchestra understands the score, that all the concertgoers get their money's-worth before they log off, and - most important of all - that the benefit for which we are all voluntarily playing meets its ultimate goal of reducing corrosion!

• We don't know what we're talking about - Dr. James Buch 23:08:32 1/30/97 (0)
• 316L SS for sea water process piping ??? - Thomas Munding 15:54:44 12/08/96 (0)
• virtual publications - Cesar V. Franco 20:28:52 7/27/96 (1)
  • Re: virtual publications - Brian Ives 11:06:39 8/06/96 (0)
• landing on the moon - Sridhar Srinivasan 11:30:26 7/22/96 (1)
  • Re: landing on the moon - M.B. Ives 11:09:57 8/06/96 (0)
• Thoughts on the 'net as a communication tool - Peter Levey 01:34:31 7/15/96 (0)

I would appreciate your thoughts on the more philosophical content my own first "moon landing."