Dr Brian Connolly, EDF Energy/Royal Academy of Engineering Reader in Corrosion Performance of Energy Systems at The University of Manchester, delivered the sixth ICAM webinar of 2017 on the topic of studying corrosion to extend the life and structural integrity of materials.
Corrosion is an omnipresent concern in most industrial applications. In fact corrosion alone costs industry globally $2 trillion each year, of which £55 billion per annum is the cost to the UK and $1.37 billion per year the cost to the global Oil & Gas sector. Effective control and understanding of corrosion processes is essential for maintaining equipment and infrastructure while avoiding failures that could lead to substantial loss of income and in the most serious cases loss of life. In many industries, as environments become increasingly demanding, we are also reaching the limits of ‘classic’ metallic systems and we must turn to advanced materials and multi-component systems, such as the use of advanced coating systems on structures, in order to mitigate degradation.
In this webinar, Dr Connolly provided an overview of the importance of understanding the mechanisms causing corrosion that may lead to the subsequent reduction of component performance or failure. He also discussed the opportunities that now exist to tackle this age-old problem through harnessing advances in computer modelling, experimental techniques at the atomic level, in operando imaging and characterisation and accessing previously untapped in-field data sets to obtain fresh insights into materials surface degradation under the demanding environments in which they operate.
Dr Brian Connolly is an EDF Energy/Royal Academy of Engineering Reader in Corrosion Performance of Energy Systems at The University of Manchester. He received his B.S. degree in Materials Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, his M.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Virginia and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the same university. His Industrial experience includes time with Mobil E&P in the Gulf of Mexico as well as time with the US Navy.
Dr Connolly has expertise in environmental degradation of materials in power generation systems specializing in the study of localized corrosion, environmentally-assisted cracking, high temperature oxidation/creep, and irradiation damage in metals, SiC/SiC composites, and advanced coatings systems. To date he has supervised over 50 post-graduate students in the area of materials degradation.
Dr Connolly is the current holder of the H.H. Uhlig award from NACE-International and is a former winner of the T.P Hoar Prize from the Institute of Corrosion. He has held previous fellowships with the Royal Society, the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency, the Office of Naval Research (US), Mobil E&P’s Technical Center and NASA.
