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Assessment of Corrosion Education (2009)

Chapter: 2 An Assessment of Corrosion Education

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Suggested Citation:"2 An Assessment of Corrosion Education." National Research Council. 2009. Assessment of Corrosion Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12560.
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2 An Assessment of Corrosion Education Corrosion impacts virtually every infrastructure system and manufacturing process and product. The fields of corrosion science and corrosion engineering try to respond to the desire for safe, reliable, economical, and design-lifetime-long performance of industrial and consumer equipment exposed to service environ- ments. The workforce responsible for addressing the corrosion problems faced by both the government and private industry possesses various levels and types of corrosion engineering education. Corrosion technologists are needed to perform repeated crucial functions, such as those of paint inspectors and specifiers, cathodic protection designers, and installers. Well-established practices, such as those devel- oped by the standardization communities, are often put to use in performing these functions. Both practicing and newly minted engineers, who do most of the design work, must possess some degree of corrosion awareness. Sometimes they also need to know enough about materials and corrosion to take corrosion into account in the design process. Corrosion specialists devoted to the selection and implementation of corrosion protection methods or to selecting materials that can withstand cor- rosive environments are also needed. Finally, there is also a need for a lesser number of experts specialized enough in corrosion fundamentals to investigate new and unexpected corrosion problems, make decisions about them, and act to mitigate the problems. These experts would primarily address novel challenges that cannot be handled with off-the-shelf knowledge or practices, such as the need for a new environment-friendly, corrosion-resistant coating to replace an existing hazardous coating or the need to extend corrosion-limited lifetimes. While they are not needed often, experts are an important part of the corrosion workforce because without 31

32 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n BOX 2-1 Knowledge-Based Education and Skills-Based Training Training, or skills-based education, is focused on imparting a defined set of skills and responses to be applied in a generally known set of conditions. Training generally does not provide a fundamental understanding of the field but teaches how to recognize a condition or situation to select the best solution. Skills-based training is distinct from knowledge-based education in that it does not ultimately give an individual the depth of understanding required to apply a body of knowledge to a situation that has not been previously encountered. During the course of this study, the committee weighed the value of both skills-based training and knowledge-based education. them the challenges would not be overcome. Moreover, those experts who are also educators are the ones responsible for teaching our future corrosion experts. Two types of education typically go into the formation of this workforce. One is training or skills-based education and the other is knowledge-based education (see Box 2-1). The industry and government panels invited for discussion during the course of this study believe that there is an important role for both training and knowledge-based corrosion education, depending on the job function and desired outcomes. Many corrosion-related functions can be performed by trained corro- sion technologists. The corrosion workforce pyramid shown in Figure 2-1 captures the concept that a relatively large number of technologists are needed to support the U.S. infrastructure, including all the sophisticated equipment associated with the country’s large industrialized economy. For instance, there are thousands of bridges and thousands of miles of buried pipelines in the United States that require cathodic protection and coatings. In contrast, only one or two engineers special- ized in corrosion (identified as “experts” and “specialists” in the pyramid) may be needed for every 100 or more other kinds of engineers in a large company or organization. In the United States, corrosion technologists are often trained by supervising their performance of repeated and predictable corrosion tasks (on-the- job training) or in conjunction with short courses or associate degrees offered by a limited number of community colleges. This education focuses on a defined set of skills and responses to a generally known set of conditions that are often repeated over and over again. A corrosion technologist often implements standardized practices because his or her education generally did not impart the fundamental understanding required to apply a body of knowledge to a situation that has not been encountered before. Such a situation calls for a knowledge-based education. Knowledge and understanding enable an individual to analyze a new problem and to devise new solutions that go beyond the catalog of known responses to

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 33 Ideal Picture of a Workforce Corrosion Schooled in Corrosion Education Method Academic institutions granting professional degrees Expert Corrosion scientist Professional societies and academic and private organizations offering supplemental learning in the form of Corrosion engineer short courses and Specialist distance learning programs Aeronautical, electrical, materials, mechanical, metallurgy, electrical, or Knowledgeable chemical engineer and designer Graduates of community colleges and trade Aware Material specifier (architect, builder, designer), schools, professional maintainer, supervisor, etc. societies and private organizations offering in- Technologist, plant/equipment inspector, house and extramural maintainer, manufacturer courses, online short courses, and skills training with certification Figure 2-1.eps FIGURE 2-1  Corrosion workforce pyramid. The pyramid shows the various categories of corrosion professionals and the knowledge they need—from the large numbers of technologists and other professionals in engineering and related disciplines who would be aware of and knowledgeable about corrosion and its mitigation, the engineers who would be considered corrosion specialists, and a small number of corrosion scientists and corrosion engineers who are experts. The column on the right shows the education paths they typically follow. Broadly speaking, the workforce can be char- acterized as follows: Technologists, such as paint inspectors and specifiers, and cathodic protection designers and installers perform repeated crucial functions; undergraduate engineering students in materials science and engineering (MSE), who upon graduation should be knowledgeable in materials selection; undergraduate engineering students in other design disciplines, such as mechanical, civil, chemical, industrial, and aeronautical engineering; and MSE graduate students, who should be very knowledgeable in materials selection and in some cases will go on to be experts in the field of corro- sion. SOURCE: Adapted from John R. Scully, presented at 16th International Corrosion Conference, Beijing, China, September 2005. known problems. Therefore, at least some of those responsible for design, manu- facture, and product lifetime must be knowledgeable in corrosion and materials fundamentals, so that they are equipped to address corrosion issues arising from the ongoing introduction of new materials and designs. Knowledge-based education is typically delivered through short courses and university-level education. Practicing engineers who focus on the design, manufacture, and processing of components and equipment usually come from one of the traditional engineering fields, such

34 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n as chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering. They must be aware of the potential problems due to corrosion and be able to recognize when they need to call in a corrosion expert. Such engineers benefit from elective courses in corrosion, short courses, and distance learning in both materials engineering and corrosion science and engineering. Many corrosion specialists learn at the graduate level and carry out their thesis or dissertation research in a university setting; others learn through a lifetime of on-the-job experience and short courses. In summary, the corrosion workforce is educated by means that span a broad educational spectrum: • Bachelor’s and associate’s degrees awarded to corrosion-aware and ­corrosion- knowledgeable engineers and corrosion specialists. • Graduate education to produce corrosion experts. • On-the-job training, continuing education through distance learning, and short courses to produce corrosion technologists, corrosion-aware engi- neers, as well as corrosion specialists and experts, depending on the course and the starting knowledge of the student. Undergraduate Corrosion Education At workshops convened to gather information, the committee heard from p ­ anelists representing various industrial and governmental sectors that their respec- tive employee pools displayed very different levels of corrosion awareness. This is hardly surprising; given the vast body of engineering knowledge necessary to operate modern industries and agencies, not all engineers should be expected to have a ­mastery of corrosion. In general, however, employers expect engineers holding a baccalaureate with a major in materials science and engineering or metallurgical engineering to have a deep enough understanding of corrosion at a sufficiently fundamental level that they can avoid obvious pitfalls in materials selection and know when to consult corrosion specialists or experts. In contrast, engineers holding a ­baccalaureate in a nonmaterials field would not be expected to have much understanding of corrosion but could at least be expected to be aware of corrosion. The committee was told that the skill sets of many (although certainly not all) practicing engineers fell short of these basic expectations. This deficiency might reflect inadequate exposure to cor- rosion in the undergraduate curriculum, ineffective instruction, or even the failure on the part of engineers to remember what they had been taught. It was apparent at the workshops that the majority of participants thought of corrosion principally in terms of metallic corrosion, occurring by electro­chemical mechanisms. Many corrosion classes also focus on metallic corrosion. This chapter, although it, too, focuses on metallic corrosion, touches on nonmetallic corrosion (see, for instance, the discussion in Box 2-2). Two questions arise when assessing

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 35 BOX 2-2 Education in the Degradation of Nonmetals Most contemporary MSE undergraduates will have had some exposure to the properties of organic materials. However, few MSE curricula in this country provide comprehensive instruc- tion in polymeric and composite materials. Historically, the most comprehensive education in polymers and composites is offered by a relatively small number of specialized departments, many outside of engineering colleges. Some of them offer both undergraduate and graduate programs, while others focus solely on graduate education. Even in such comprehensive programs, polymer degradation and failure are rarely primary academic topics nowadays. In the past, the mitigation of polymer degradation and failure by compounding resins with appro­ priate additives was of great interest in both teaching and research. Paralleling the situation in metallic corrosion, however, funding for research on degradation and related topics has shrunk significantly, leading to decreased faculty interest and diminished treatment of this topic in polymer- and composite-focused curricula. The overall result is that few current engineer- ing graduates will have had any significant exposure to the subject of polymer or composite d ­ egradation. While graduate engineers will therefore be very capable of monitoring the change in properties of a polymer in service, they will have no familiarity with or understanding of the interactions in a particular environment/polymer system, and they are unlikely to be able to select a polymer/additive compound or a composite. Ideally, engineers engaged in such a selection, which often involves the substitution of a polymer or composite for a metal, should be familiar with the advantages and shortcomings of both classes of material. It is regrettable in terms of societal costs and public safety that the present educational system rarely, if ever, imparts such comprehensive expertise. corrosion education from the supply side. First, which types of courses expose students to corrosion, and how comprehensive is that treatment? Second, who takes those courses? At the undergraduate level, corrosion is typically taught in three broad categories of courses. The Dedicated Corrosion Course The first and most comprehensive of these is the dedicated corrosion course, typically involving about 40-45 hours of classroom instruction that may also be taken by starting graduate students. A typical modern class covers the fundamental thermodynamics and kinetics of corrosion, the eight forms of metallic corrosion (uniform, galvanic, crevice, pitting, intergranular, selective leaching, erosion cor- rosion, and stress corrosion), the environmental degradation of nonmetals, and corrosion protection strategies such as coatings, inhibitors, and cathodic protec- tion. The coverage is primarily theoretical, grounded in the theory of corrosion and the principles of electrochemistry. A hypothetical syllabus for such a course is shown in Box 2-3. Another style of dedicated corrosion class is more deeply rooted

36 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n BOX 2-3 Hypothetical Syllabus for an Undergraduate Course on Corrosion 1. Introduction Importance of corrosion Forms of corrosion Basic electrochemistry: pH, balancing electrochemical equations Anodic, cathodic half-cell reactions Faraday’s law Ions in solution, ion transport, current flow Structure of electrochemical interface, potential The four requirements for a corrosion cell 2. Thermodynamics Review of free energy, activity Electrochemical free energy Standard potential Electromotive force series Simple electrochemical cells, cell potential, reaction direction, spontaneous reactions versus forced Nernst equation Effect of concentration on electrochemical cells Reference electrodes Pourbaix diagrams Oxygen reduction and evolution Water, proton, hydronium reduction, evolution, stable region of water Metal: passivity, immunity, corrosion Effect of other oxidizers: chlorine, peroxide, nitric acid Sample diagrams: Fe, Al, Cu, Cr diagrams Use of Pourbaix diagrams Estimated effect of alloying 3. Kinetics Driven and driving systems, electrode polarity Exchange current density Activation polarization, Butler Volmer equation Tafel equation Mixed potential theory: redox reaction, coupled reactions—a corrosion cell, corrosion potential, and current density Simple Evans diagram Effect of added oxidizing agent Concentration polarization in learning practical skills, treats the eight forms of corrosion more descriptively, works with case studies, and teaches some design issues and corrosion remedia- tion strategies. Other courses dedicated to corrosion might link it to batteries and fuel cells, where corrosion is providing electrical power. A comprehensive electro­ chemical engineering approach might cover the same fundamental principles

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 37 Transport limitation of cathodic reactant, effect of flow or stirring Effect of oxygen transport limitation Transport limitation of anodic reaction 4. Measurement of Corrosion Rate Mass loss, mass loss rate, penetration rate Measured polarization curve and underlying Evans diagram Potentiodynamic polarization, Tafel extrapolation, fit to equation Linear polarization, Rp Experimental considerations: sample, cell, electrolyte, RE, CE, etc. Atmospheric corrosion tests 5. Corrosion Phenomenology Uniform (examples of Fe, Al compared with pH, NaCl, etc.) Galvanic corrosion (using Evans diagrams to explain) Erosion corrosion and fretting Passivity, stainless steel alloying (other brief examples) Pitting Crevice corrosion Intergranular corrosion Dealloying Environmentally assisted cracking Stress corrosion cracking Hydrogen effects Corrosion fatigue 6. Corrosion Prevention Materials selection, alloy corrosion characteristics Coatings Inhibitors Cathodic protection, sacrificial and impressed current Anodic protection 7. Special Materials/Environments Polymer corrosion/degradation Atmospheric corrosion Oxidation Underground corrosion Rebar in concrete Microbial effects of corrosion along with other electrochemical applications, such as chloroalkali synthesis, electrodeposition, and electrowinning. After taking one of these courses, an engineer should have a strong enough foundation that, after on-the-job train- ing, he or she will be able to avoid design blunders and recognize when his or her knowledge limitations necessitate calling in a specialist or expert.

38 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n Survey Course That Includes Corrosion Few undergraduate materials science and engineering (MSE) programs in the United States and even fewer nonmaterials engineering programs offer (much less require) such a dedicated course. Many programs provide the second category of course—that is, an overview of corrosion in classes required for all students. One approach in this category is an introductory, survey-type course offered early in an undergraduate curriculum. Typically this would be an introductory materials science course taken by all materials majors or by students in mechanical, civil, and other engineering fields. Other schools might cover corrosion in a course on the mechanical behavior of materials. Most textbooks for this type of course present corrosion at the back of the book, adding some elementary electrochemistry to build on a foundation of thermodynamics and physical metallurgy gained earlier. Typically, a single lecture is devoted to corrosion, although, unfortunately, some instructors might not make it all the way through the textbook. Assuming that the student did attend the lecture, he or she is likely to know that corrosion requires an anode, a cathode, electrical contact, and ionic contact. For dissimilar metal couples, the engineer may be able to consult a handbook on the galvanic series and identify which metal would act as the anode in service and which as the cathode. To give an idea of the expectations for engineers, the only such material covered in the engineering license fundamentals of engineering (FE) exam for professional engineers offered by the National Council of Examiners for Engineers (NCEES) is the electromotive force series. A graduating engineer might also have access to a corrosion report prepared by an expert that would allow him or her to make deci- sions or reach conclusions. She or he is unlikely to be able to proactively address specific corrosion problems in design or independently analyze corrosion failures encountered on the job. Senior Design Course The third kind of course where a student might gain some corrosion awareness is the senior capstone or design course; here students are expected to synthesize the knowledge acquired in many different courses to tackle a particular design problem. For instance, such a course for a materials engineer would focus on the selection of materials appropriate for specific applications, so the student engineer would have to consider the impact of corrosion, along with other factors, on the   Although the focus of this report is engineering education, the committee notes that often some electrochemistry and corrosion are taught in freshman chemistry classes.   capstone course is a course offered in the final semester of a student’s major. It ties together the A key topics that faculty expect the student to have learned during the major, interdisciplinary program, or interdepartmental major.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 39 functional success of the project. If that student has had little or no exposure to corrosion, a course whose objective is to help the student synthesize knowledge already mastered is unlikely to teach anything else than that corrosion could take place and degrade system performance. Discussion Unfortunately, while these three categories of corrosion education are available in some schools, many students, particularly those in fields of engineering other than materials, are likely to graduate with no formal exposure to corrosion science or engineering. This situation explains the limited corrosion-related skill sets that students are bringing to the workforce. Given the enormous financial and strategic importance of corrosion, as dis- cussed in Chapter 1, how is it that most U.S. engineers can graduate with so little grasp of corrosion? In the committee’s opinion, the answer lies in the growing num- ber of competing topics that the graduates must master. As engineering becomes increasingly complex and interdisciplinary, there is constant pressure to keep add- ing fresh material to the curriculum, including courses on new tools that lead to a deeper understanding of all materials while keeping the course load to a total of 120-128 credits. (Examples are computational tools for modeling and visualizing everything from bonding to structure formation to macroscopic processes.) This pressure comes from various stakeholders: students, who want to be competitive for employment or admission to graduate schools; faculty members, who sincerely believe that every well-educated student should know a reasonable amount about his or her own research specialty; and also employers, who want new graduates to be conversant in the latest findings. Most engineering educators recognize that curricula are already saturated and accept that if new topics are to be added, old ones must be subtracted or diluted. Corrosion education tends not to fare well in the face of these pressures. Despite its importance, corrosion is not new, and few consider corrosion science and engineering to be at the cutting edge. The very thought of corrosion can be off- putting to students, who feel that they should be learning about new technologies with the potential to change the world. Few engineering educators and students grasp the wealth of strategies that are available to prevent corrosion and would rather spend class time on topics that they perceive as more useful. Results from a questionnaire circulated to engineering educators in conjunc- tion with the present study tend to support this view (see Box 2-4 for a discussion   couple of panelists thought that corrosion would be taken more seriously if the name were A changed. The corollary cited was the term “tribology,” which has come to be used in place of “wear.”

40 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n BOX 2-4 Data on U.S. Corrosion Education1 Engineering schools in the United States were asked to complete an online questionnaire so that the committee could obtain a clearer picture of the status of undergraduate corrosion education. Questionnaires were sent to 83 educational institutions that included, but were not limited to, all ABET-accredited MSE programs and the top 20 engineering schools in terms of numbers of bachelor’s-level graduates produced annually. Thirty-one responses were received (37 percent response rate); 19 of them were from MSE programs and 12 were from other programs (chemical, civil, mechanical, environmental, or general engineering). Three of the respondents followed a quarter system; the remaining 28 a semester system. The committee recognizes that there is likely to be a strong bias in this exercise, since schools participating in corrosion education would be more likely to respond than schools that did not. Accordingly, the results should be viewed as giving the best case for corrosion offerings rather than a truly accurate picture. Nineteen of the respondents offered a course or courses specifically on corrosion, identify­ ing a total of 26 courses altogether, 16 of which are offered every year. Of these, only 6 under- graduate courses were identified as “required.” The remaining 20 courses comprised 6 elective undergraduate courses, 7 elective graduate-level courses, and 7 elective courses aimed at a mixed audience of undergraduates and graduate students. Although 6 courses were identified as “required,” only one program indicated that it required a corrosion class, along with two specializations within programs. Reasons cited for offering corrosion courses included student interest; the belief that it was essential for materials/metallurgical scientists and engineers to know about corrosion and important for many different careers; and employer demand. Eleven respondents offering corrosion courses indicated that students from other depart- ments took the corrosion course; these students had a wide range of engineering backgrounds. All of the corrosion courses taught the electrochemical fundamentals of corrosion and ways to minimize corrosion by design. Some focused on metallic corrosion, while others covered the degradation of a broad spectrum of engineering materials, including metals, ceramics, polymers, wood, biomaterials, and biodegradable materials in many different service environ- ments. At some schools the content of corrosion courses had changed significantly in the last 10 years: Many reported broadening the range of materials covered, others had increased their emphasis on electrochemical mechanisms in metallic corrosion, and a few emphasized the role of corrosion in fracture mechanics. The questionnaire process identified only three laboratory- based corrosion courses and three corrosion courses offered as distance courses. It is likely that of the questionnaire). More than half of the respondents (19 of the 37) said that their institution offered a specialized course in corrosion. However, it is essential  Survey recipients were asked about corrosion education at their institution, but the survey did not specify whether corrosion referred exclusively to metallic materials, to the low-temperature degradation of metallic materials, or to general materials degradation. The majority of responses confirmed the committee’s expectation that most individuals consider corrosion to be the degrada- tion of metallic materials.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 41 these trends reflected the individual strengths of instructors; the survey revealed that corrosion courses were taught by instructors with a wide range of expertise and experience, from cor- rosion specialists with active research programs in corrosion science and engineering through those with related expertise in electrochemistry and applied chemistry, to those with no formal training in corrosion. Twelve respondents did not offer a specialist course in corrosion. Of the schools that did not offer a specific course, three indicated that other topics had higher priority, four indicated that they had no one to teach such a course, and five said that corrosion was covered in other courses. Seventy-nine percent of all respondents indicated that corrosion was covered in other courses. These other courses were most commonly an introductory materials course required of students in materials science and engineering. Corrosion was also treated in some thermodynamics, design, chemistry, processing, and mechanical behavior courses. Five schools required mechanical engineering undergraduates to take a course that included corro- sion, and one or two schools required students in industrial engineering, chemical engineer- ing, civil engineering, manufacturing, and general engineering to take such a course. Students taking classes in which corrosion was covered along with other topics represented a range of engineering majors, along with students studying physics and dentistry. Because the lack of qualified instructors had been widely cited at workshops as a reason for not offering corrosion courses, the questionnaire asked whether the responding school would consider hiring a faculty member whose technical focus was corrosion. Fifty-eight percent of respondents replied that they would consider making such an appointment, while 42 percent would not. Of those that would consider such an appointment, about half would appoint someone to replace a retiring faculty member. Most of the remainder would consider such an individual provided that they were competitive with candidates across a broad range of other technical areas and had broader expertise. Of those schools that would not consider appointing a corrosion expert, 91 percent believed that other topics had a higher priority and 9 percent believed the availability of research funding was limited. Respondents were asked to identify where graduates from their undergraduate programs eventually found employment. Averaged across all responses, 24 percent ended up working in design, 41 percent in manu- facturing, 23 percent in research or academia, and 12 percent in other areas. 1 Summary of the results of the questionnaire, which are reported fully in Appendix B. to note that personnel at institutions participating in corrosion education might be more likely to respond to the questionnaire, so that the results should be viewed as probably overstating the real situation. Some schools also required the corro- sion course for those majoring in disciplines such as materials science, materials s ­ cience/mechanical engineering joint degree, metallurgy, and chemical engineering,   According to data presented to the committee, a DOD survey of schools found that of the 72 institutions surveyed, 31 offered a corrosion course.

42 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 6 5 Number of Respondents 4 3 2 1 0 Bioengineering Civil Industrial Mechanical Nuclear Engineering Engineering Engineering Engineering Chemical General MSE Manufacturing Engineering Engineering Engineering FIGURE 2-2  The number of respondents to the committee’s questionnaire who indicated a corrosion course was required for a particular major. Figure 2-2.eps as well as the biomaterials and metals specializations within materials science and engineering. A few of the schools that responded to the committee’s questionnaire offer interested students a dedicated corrosion course as an elective. Of the schools that did not offer a dedicated course in corrosion, a quarter said they placed a higher priority on other topics while a third stated that their institution did not have anyone with appropriate training to teach a specialized corrosion course. O ­ thers seemed to feel that the coverage of corrosion provided in other courses was adequate. In other words, it seems to the committee that corrosion education is not commonly considered to be a crucial component of an engineer’s professional education. Figure 2-2 shows data from the committee’s questionnaire on the num- ber of responding institutions’ required corrosion courses. Figure 2-3 shows the most frequently cited reasons for not offering corrosion courses. Figure 2-4 shows the availability of corrosion courses in the top 10 Ph.D-granting institutions and the top 10 4-year engineering colleges. Those schools offering a dedicated corrosion course reported that it was being taken by students from a wide range of engineering majors and by others as well,

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 43 33% Other topics have more priority No one available for or 50% interested in teaching it The material is covered in other courses 17% FIGURE 2-3  Most frequent reasons for not offering a corrosion course. Figure 2-3.eps such as dentistry students. This suggests that there is, indeed, a demand from stu- dents for good, high-quality dedicated courses when they are offered by engaging faculty. At one school that emphasizes corrosion, the undergraduate corrosion course has been expanded to include corrosion batteries and fuel cells to attract stu- dents. Nevertheless, only about 8 percent, 5 percent, and 12 percent of mechanical, civil, and chemical engineers, respectively, took this course. Data on enrollment in corrosion courses at two schools are shown in Figure 2-5. One would expect these statistics to reflect a best-case scenario, given the strength of corrosion instruction at these schools. One can only conclude that few undergraduate engineers take corrosion classes, even when good ones are available. Furthermore, the time spent on the topic in courses that “cover” corrosion amounts to only a very small fraction of the overall discussion time (see Figure 2-6). The committee is aware of two exceptions to the trend of little formal corrosion education at the undergraduate level. Kilgore College in Texas offers an associate of applied science degree in corrosion technology, with an emphasis on applica- tions in the oil industry. In addition, the University of Akron in partnership with NACE is planning a B.S. in corrosion engineering. There are also plans to submit the Akron program to ABET, Inc. (formerly the Accreditation Board for Engineer-  Kilgore’s corrosion technology associate’s degree was established in 1980. In 2007 the program had 70 students. SOURCE: Kathy Riggs Larsen, “Wanted: Corrosion Professionals,” Materials Performance, December 2007.

44 Top 10 Ph.D.-Granting Engineering Top 10 Ph.D.-Granting Engineering Materials Selection Course Required? Corrosion Course Required? Corrosion Taught as Part of Another Required Course? Mechanistic (M) or Materials Selection (MS) Based Curricula? Materials Selection Course Required? Corrosion Course Required? Corrosion Taught as Part of Another Required Course? Mechanistic (M) or Materials Selection (MS) Based Curricula? Universities* Universities* 1 MIT N† N N — 1 MIT Y† N Y MS 2 Stanford N N Y M 2 Stanford N N N — 3 University of California (Berkeley) N† N N — 3 University of California (Berkeley) Y Y Y M,MS 4 Caltech N N N — 4 Caltech N N N — 5 George Institute of Technology N† N N — 5 George Institute of Technology Y† N Y MS 6 University of Illinois N N Y MS 6 University of Illinois N N N — 7 University of Michigan N† N Y M 7 University of Michigan Y N N — 8 Carnegie Mellon University N N N — 8 Carnegie Mellon University N N Y unk 9 Cornell University N† N N — 9 Cornell University N N N — 10 Purdue University N† N N — 10 Purdue University N N N — Top 10 4-Year Engineering Colleges* Top 10 4-Year Engineering Colleges* 1 Embry-Riddle NA NA NA NA 1 Embry-Riddle NA NA NA NA 2 U.S. Air Force Academy N Y N — 2 U.S. Air Force Academy N N N — 3 St. Louis University-Parks College N Y N — 3 St. Louis University-Parks College N N N — 4 U.S. Naval Academy Y Y N M,MS 4 U.S. Naval Academy N N N — 5 Rose Hulman Institute of Technology N N Y MS 5 Rose Hulman Institute of Technology N N N — 6 Cooper Union N N Y — 6 Cooper Union N N N — 7 Bucknell N N N — 7 Bucknell N N N — 8 U.S. Military Academy N N N — 8 U.S. Military Academy N N N — 9 Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo N N Y M 9 Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo N N Y M 10 Harvey Mudd College NA NA NA NA 10 Harvey Mudd College NA NA NA NA Figure 2-4(a&b).eps FIGURE 2-4  Availability of corrosion courses in the top 10 Ph.D.-granting institutions and the top 10 4-year engineering colleges. Right: materials s Redrawn using 8-point type ­ cience and engineering curricula. Left: mechanical engineering curricula. Data on the availability of corrosion classes was based on a 2004 survey of online descriptions of curricula. Of the 20 schools examined, only three materials departments required a materials selection course and one required a corrosion course. Five departments taught corrosion as part of another required course, three taught it from the standpoint of materials section, and two had a focus on corrosion mechanisms. Only 1 of the 20 mechanical engineering departments requires a materials selection course and 3 required a corrosion course. Six schools taught corrosion as part of another required course, three teaching it from the perspective of materials selection and three focusing on corrosion mechanisms. *Based on U.S. News and World Report’s 2004 listing of top 10 schools in each category. †Materials selection covered as part of design and/or materials courses. SOURCE: David H. Rose, DOD Reliability Information Analysis Center.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 45 35 30 2007 25 2008 20 15 10 5 0 Bioengineering Chemical Joint Majors MSE Other Engineering 80 70 Number taking MSE 301 over a 3-year period (three offerings) 60 % of majors taking MSE 301 in 2nd-4th years 50 40 30 20 10 0 Biomedical Civil Electrical Engineering Systems Engineering Engineering Engineering Undeclared Engineering Applied Chemical Computer Engineering Mechanical Overall Mathematics Engineering Science and Science and Aerospace Computer Engineering Engineering FIGURE 2-5  Upper: Number of students taking MSE 112 Corrosion (Chemical Properties) at the Figure 2-5(lower&upper).eps University of California, Berkeley, in 2007 and 2008. Lower: Number of students from each major taking MSE 301 at the University of Virginia over a 3-year period and the percentage from each major taking that class.

46 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 11% 41% Multiple lectures A few lectures One lecture 48% FIGURE 2-6  Number of lectures on corrosion when corrosion is covered. Data are for all schools responding to the committee’s survey. Figure 2-6.eps ing and Technology) for accreditation. (See Box 2-5 for a discussion of ABET.) This program is aimed at bridging the gap in the workforce between individuals with an associate’s degree in corrosion and those with graduate degrees. While it is too soon for the committee to draw any conclusions about the Akron program, it will be worth watching over the next several years. To assess the demand for expertise in corrosion, at its second and third meet- ings, the committee heard from industrial and government agency panels whose members represented a broad spectrum of organizations that employ engineers. Few employers mentioned any need for corrosion technicians at the associate’s level or corrosion engineers at the B.S. level. Instead, most of them valued employees at these levels who brought a broader skills set to the workplace, so that they could tackle a variety of projects and tasks. Employers expressed more concern about the lack of fundamental knowledge (e.g., thermodynamics) than about the lack of corrosion knowledge among their B.S.-level engineers. The overarching concern was that on many occasions those making design decisions did not realize that they did not know anything about corrosion. The employers appear to want all engineers making design and materials selection decisions to have enough exposure to corrosion to realize that they do not know enough about it to make the decision alone and that they need to consult a specialist.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 47 BOX 2-5 ABET and Accreditation ABET, Inc. (www.abet.org) provides accreditation for programs in engineering and tech- nology. ABET also accredits programs in computer science and in the applied sciences. ABET has a worldwide presence and is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accredita- tion. Because its membership comprises 28 professional societies, it is the professions, as stake­ holders in the quality of ABET’s accredited programs, that help to assure educational quality. In 2006, the latest year for which data are available, ABET accredited 1,787 engineering programs at 364 institutions and 670 technology programs at 226 institutions. A program is an academic course of study leading to a degree and is not the same as a department, which is an administrative unit. Because many universities have both engineering and technology pro- grams, the number of universities visited by ABET is not additive. Within those programmatic categories for which there are program criteria, in 2006 there were 75 engineering accredited programs in materials-related subjects (ceramics 7, materials 58, and metallurgical 10). Also, the subject category (say, metallurgy) does not necessarily match the name of the degree (say, materials science). For a program to obtain and maintain accreditation it must be reviewed against published criteria. A program’s self-evaluation is reviewed by an ad hoc team of specialized and trained peers, who then visit the program to verify the program’s own report. If all is well, accreditation is granted for 6 years. Programs with weaknesses may be visited more frequently, and in the rare case that it has deficiencies when it is measured against the ABET criteria, the program may be asked to show cause—that is, say why accreditation should not be removed. No show-cause action is undertaken without giving the program an opportunity to cure its deficiencies and carry out a new self-evaluation. ABET’s general criteria define the minimum educational requirements for a graduate to be deemed an applied scientist, computer scientist, engineer, or technologist. Its program criteria are written with the assistance of the relevant professional society or societies, and these criteria are used to judge programs with specific modifiers. For example, the American Society of Civil Engineers suggests draft program criteria to ABET for all programs in civil engineering. New program areas or areas with a limited number of programs may not have their own criteria, so they are judged against more general criteria by evaluators familiar with the objectives of that program. Some program areas, such as materials, have more than one society dedicated to their discipline; in this case, one society is designated as a lead society for the particular discipline and the others are called “cooperating societies.” The materials societies represented in ABET include the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers (NICE), The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS), and the Materials Research Society (MRS), which is an associate member. Beginning in 1997, ABET modified its criteria to emphasize continuous improvement, defi- nition of objectives, and assessment of outcomes (the abilities of graduates). Typically, today’s criteria contain eight categories: students, program education objectives, program outcomes, continuous improvement, curriculum, faculty, facilities, and support. If program criteria exist, then they are listed as the ninth category of criteria. A significant contribution from professional societies to the program criteria is the coherent list of educational outcomes expected from a program’s graduates at the time of graduation. Because of ABET’s approach, the committee spent some time developing educational outcomes for each of the many levels of education that might produce a worker in corrosion control (see Appendix F).

48 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n These desires are modest but are apparently not being satisfied. How, then, could engineering programs do a better job of ensuring that their graduates know when they are reaching the limits of their knowledge on corrosion and understand that they should consult experts? This would seem to demand more awareness and appreciation of corrosion than is currently imparted at most engineering schools. More attention to graduate programs that emphasize rigorous, relevant cor- rosion science and engineering could increase the supply of faculty capable of instituting corrosion programs. Realistically, however, there would not appear to be sufficient funding for every undergraduate program to have its own corrosion specialist. Fortunately, the committee sees opportunities to leverage the expertise of faculty members engaged in complementary research on, say, the applications of electrochemistry (ranging from battery research to work on chemical mechanical planarization) or the mechanical behavior of materials. Alternatively, members of the chemistry faculty or even the MSE faculty (not corrosion specialists) could also teach undergraduate corrosion courses, provided appropriate teaching materials were available. Since most engineering curricula require students to take technical electives, there is an opportunity for nearly every engineering program to offer a course on designing against corrosion. Graduate Corrosion Education Graduate education in MSE is the most direct way to produce corrosion specialists, those at the top of the corrosion workforce pyramid. These corrosion specialists, in the committee’s view, are the engineers who can use the fundamentals of corrosion science and engineering to address difficult, out-of-the-ordinary cor- rosion problems and to advance the field by creating new knowledge, techniques, and instrumentation. Graduate MSE education occurs mostly in MSE departments but also, at times, in a corrosion group or center within a chemical or mechanical engineering department. By extension, graduate corrosion education takes place in these departments as well as, in the committee’s experience, in civil engineering departments. Typically, a graduate student becomes knowledgeable in a particular engineer- ing field by taking a sequence of classes and doing research on a focused topic, lead- ing to a master’s or Ph.D. thesis. Graduate engineering education usually involves approximately eight classes at the M.S. level or 12-15 three-credit classes at the  There are 100 MSE, 223 mechanical engineering, and 142 chemical engineering programs in the United States. Of the 365 programs in mechanical and chemical engineering, 72 percent of the mechanical engineering and 85 percent of the chemical engineering departments house graduate programs.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 49 Ph.D. level. A typical M.S. in the United States is earned in 2 years while a Ph.D. is earned in 4 or 5 years. Students at some schools can also earn a course-based master’s degree in engineering by taking a few more graduate courses without conducting any graduate research. Employer demand for these students after they graduate comes from academia, government, and industry, not least because a new material can be crucial to the mission of any of them, particularly high-tech industries like those manufacturing aircraft engines or nuclear power plants. Of most interest in the context of this study is that many of these industries look for master’s- or Ph.D.-level graduates who have some corrosion expertise. One challenge for the graduate corrosion edu- cation system is to produce engineers with sufficient fundamental and technical knowledge and good enough critical assessment and communication skills to allow them to contribute immediately to the industry or government organization that recruits them, even though they may lack experience specific to that employer. In light of these considerations, how many master’s and Ph.D. students is enough? According to opinions conveyed to the committee during the panels convened for its meetings, large industrial and governmental organizations need roughly 1 in 50 of their engineers to be knowledgeable about corrosion in order to put together an effective design team. Absent such expertise, an expert consultant must be brought in from outside. These employers report that individuals with such preparation are usually capable of making substantive contributions to the company’s work immediately but also must spend their first 2-3 years in the organization integrating their skills and knowledge with the business culture and the operations and technical appli- cation areas of their employer. An alternative to recruiting people with advanced degrees in corrosion is to cultivate them internally. Other approaches are to hire experienced corrosion experts from another company or to use consultants or contract research outfits to solve problems and deal with new challenges as they arise. None of these approaches is as effective as recruiting a freshly minted or experienced corrosion specialist, since it is estimated that it could take over 5 years to develop a corrosion specialist internally. One industry panelist from the energy sector declared that every materials specialist in his sector should have some level of corrosion education. That ­panelist also said that corrosion is a key issue in almost every engineering decision involving materials. Panelists from other sectors argued that although only a few corrosion experts are needed in a large company with hundreds of engineers, the experts are crucial nonetheless. A representative of another company argued that corro- sion specialists must be capable of performing duties other than those related to  Three credits entail 15-16 weeks of course delivery with 3 lecture hours a week in a school that operates on the semester system.

50 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n corrosion, because otherwise they would not be fully utilized. A few government sector panelists also said that one corrosion specialist is enough for every 25-100 design engineers; another panelist said that his organization has no in-house cor- rosion expertise but relies on outside corrosion experts. Another option would be to offer an in-house short course on corrosion to enhance the corrosion awareness of staff. The committee estimates that currently 19 or so corrosion specialists are graduating each year in the United States from graduate institutions with faculty focusing on corrosion. The responses to the questionnaire referred to in the preceding section on undergraduate education indicated that of the 31 responding universities, 7 offer mixed (graduate/undergraduate) classes in corrosion and 7 offer graduate classes in corrosion in an MSE department or in a closely related field. This means that approximately 1 in 5 of the responding graduate institutions offered classroom education in corrosion. The frequency with which these courses were offered varies from every year to every other year. The courses are usually but not always taught in MSE departments. They usually cover a mix of fundamentals and ways to minimize corrosion. At the graduate level, corrosion is sometimes covered in courses on thermodynamics, transport, and surface science; 9 out of 44 classes listed had corrosion as a subtopic. Graduate engineering students in MSE are typically not required to take a course in corrosion, and such courses are often offered by departments where there is a faculty member with expertise in corrosion, again mirroring the undergraduate situation. Corrosion is either a course on its own or a part of a structure-property course that can be taken as a graduate-level technical elective in much the same way fracture and other technical electives are offered. In some cases the graduate-level class in corrosion has a mixture of undergraduate and graduate students and the class is taken by both advanced undergraduate students and new graduate students who might be matriculating from a school or program that did not offer an under­ graduate corrosion class. However, in other cases, separate sets of corrosion courses are offered to graduates and undergraduates. Graduate students in MSE not specializing in corrosion do not necessarily take a graduate corrosion class. This situation mirrors undergraduate MSE education,   This estimate is based on the existence of 30 smaller schools, each with one corrosion faculty, that have ongoing research in corrosion and produce 0.5 graduates each year (30 × 0.5 = 15) and 5 large schools with a concentration in corrosion and two faculty members that each produce one graduate (5 × 2 × 1 = 10), for a total of 25 graduates. About 75 percent, or 19, of these graduates find employ- ment as corrosion experts because 25 percent are employed in other sectors such as micro­electronics. This creates a supply of approximately 19 corrosion experts per year by the graduate education route. Another estimate, 24-37 corrosion experts per year, was based on corrosion faculty in technical s ­ ocieties. There may be additional experts from international educational programs.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 51 where the availability of undergraduate classes on corrosion depends on the incli- nation and technical interests of the faculty in that particular school and the num- ber of technical electives available. In most cases, corrosion is not in the graduate core curriculum. No matter the engineering field, if no faculty member conducts research in corrosion or a related field, a graduate corrosion course is unlikely to be offered. Since the conduct of research in corrosion is heavily contingent on the availability of research funding—typically obtained through some combination of grants from the federal government and industry—this factor can in effect dictate whether graduate students have a chance to study corrosion. Students who are exposed to a curriculum with a graduate or mixed ­undergraduate/ graduate corrosion class, or students undertaking an advanced or Ph.D.-level cor- rosion class, as well as focused dissertation research on a corrosion-related topic, learn a lot about materials fundamentals (structure, thermodynamics, and kinetics of solid materials), metallurgy, and one or two other related areas, such as materials characterization, fracture, or surface science. A single class in polymers, composites, ceramics, and electronic materials (or combinations thereof) teaching structure/ composition/properties relationships may also be taken. Related technical electives such as computational modeling of the structure and/or deformation of materials, materials processing, mathematics of materials science, as well as probability and statistics often round out such a graduate curriculum. Students are also prepared in the fundamentals of corrosion by undertaking research, which offers an opportunity to learn about needs, gaps, and research opportunities by undertaking a literature survey. The research itself may lead to a thesis, a paper published in a technical journal, presentation of the results at a national or international symposium, and even to a career decision to carry on with the research. Students learn to plan, conduct, and analyze corrosion experiments, perhaps incorporating 10-15 percent modeling content; this leads to discussion of results and often the making of recommendations. Research may involve the mechanisms of corrosion and its mitigation and prevention, but there is usually limited opportunity for materials selection and design. The research can be of either an engineering or a scientific nature. Graduate education in a department other than MSE can also produce a corrosion specialist out of a student who learns a closely related topic such as electrosynthesis or fuel cell catalysis, to name just two. However, while such graduates may lack a substantial background in MSE because the courses ­making up their degree did not cover the engineering fundamentals of materials in depth, they often do take a course in electrochemical engineering or theoretical electrochemistry, where the fundamentals of metals corrosion are often covered. Faculty in these departments might include people who study time-dependent degradation of materials properties, and faculty in chemical engineering might include those studying batteries, fuel cells, or the electrochemical synthesis of

52 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n materials and chemicals. This situation somewhat resembles the undergraduate scene described earlier. Information on the number of university faculty who consider themselves c ­ orrosion specialists can be found on the Web site of NACE International (origi- nally the National Association of Corrosion Engineers). The list there includes about 81 faculty members (excluding retired faculty) who teach graduate-level corrosion in their department. One estimate is that 48 of them are active in research and that each produces 0.5 to 0.75 corrosion experts with advanced degrees every year, or 24-37 individuals. Of this number, it is estimated that only about 75 percent are employed in corrosion-related jobs, with the remainder finding other engineer- ing or technical jobs. Many universities can also identify between 5 and 9 other faculty spread throughout departments such as MSE, chemical engineering, and chemistry who work in areas closely related to corrosion whose graduates possess the fundamental knowledge that would allow them to be quickly converted into corrosion experts. The committee estimates that a small percent of the graduate students advised by such faculty end up with careers as corrosion specialists. There are approximately 120 chemical engineering programs with graduate programs. Within these chemi- cal engineering departments it is estimated that anywhere from 1 out of 7 to 1 out of 10 professors teach and or conduct research in areas closely related to electro- chemistry or other subject matter related to corrosion. A typical graduate chemi- cal engineering department has between 8 and 15 faculty members, 75 percent of whom carry out research. Assuming that each of these “research-active” professors specializing in a corrosion-related area produces 0.5-0.75 graduate student per year and that 10-25 percent of them find work as corrosion specialists, the annual supply of corrosion specialists from this route is 14. Similarly, the 160 graduate mechanical engineering departments average 10-20 faculty members, with about 75 percent of them being active in research. In the best case, 1 in 20 of those professors in a mechanical engineering department might specialize in a field involving time-dependent materials properties, such as environmental degradation. Therefore, this country has about 60 mechanical engineering faculty capable of producing corrosion specialists. If each of these 60 professors graduates 0.5-0.75 student per year and 10 percent find jobs as corrosion specialists, 5 more people can be added to the supply of corrosion specialists. Simi- lar estimates could be made for civil or nuclear engineering, but probably not for electrical, computer science, and systems engineering. Therefore, the total annual production of specialists and experts in corrosion is about 24-37 from programs emphasizing corrosion and another 20 or so from other engineering programs. During the course of this study the committee learned that many people believe the number of corrosion faculty in the United States is declining. Among the 31 universities responding to the committee’s questionnaire, 15 of the 26 answering

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 53 the question said they would consider hiring a faculty member whose technical focus is corrosion. Of the remaining departments, only 2 (of 26) cited insufficient research funds as the deciding factor in not hiring such a faculty member; the rest said that other topics had higher priority. However, only 12.5 percent of those who would consider hiring new corrosion faculty would fill a newly created slot with requisite facilities set aside for the hiring of a corrosion specialist professor. Other answers were these: We would consider such a candidate if the candidate is com- petitive with candidates from other specialties. We do not have a specific position set aside for corrosion studies. Candidate must have strong materials expertise, not just corrosion. They will be considered if their work also involves applications of electrochemistry to energy production. Of those who would not consider hir- ing such a faculty member, 91 percent said that other topics have higher priority and 9 percent said that limited availability of research funds was the reason this area would not be considered. Other evidence of this trend came from a panel of university MSE department chairs interviewed by the committee. Most revealed that retiring faculty specializing in corrosion probably would not be replaced by younger colleagues. The committee’s consensus was that grants for corrosion- related research were on the decline at these leading engineering universities. In addition, the universities recognize that more funding is available for novel and cutting-edge research. Acquiring such funding would allow them to compete for the best students and would satisfy the faculty desire to conduct research in new areas where important advances can be made. The committee does not know how many corrosion specialists who retire in the next 10 years will be replaced. There was anecdotal evidence that faculty in corrosion are sometimes not replaced when a position is vacated. However, some- times the replacement was a new person with competence in related areas such as electrochemical materials synthesis or fuel cells. The second piece of evidence for this perceived decline in faculty numbers is the shrinking number of journal articles on corrosion by authors at U.S. universities. Figure 2-7 shows data on the U.S. share of papers on corrosion and Figure 2-8 shows the U.S. share in two lead- ing materials journals (more detail on the corrosion authorship data is available in Appendix C). Figure 2-9 shows a decrease in the number of Defense Technical Information Center reports on corrosion over the last few decades. Assuming that the mean authorship rate did not change with time, the number of faculty authors is decreasing with time. DSB’s report on corrosion control10 points out that there is some fragmenta- tion in corrosion funding with 1- and 2-year award periods. As a result of this fragmented funding, there is not enough continuity or stability to sustain gradu- 10 Defense Science Board, Report on Corrosion Control. Available at http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ ADA428767. Accessed March 2008. Summarized in Appendix A.

54 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n Total number of articles published in both journals Number of articles written by authors at U.S. institutions % U.S. authored 90 80 Number of articles written by authors at U.S. institutions other than academic 70 Number of articles written by authors at U.S. universities 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 FIGURE 2-7  Upper: Articles published in Corrosion and Corrosion Science from 1985 to 2007. The Figure 2-7(lower&upper).eps chart indicates a gradual overall decline in the percentage of articles written by authors at U.S. institu- upper is a bitmap image with a vector key tions. Lower: Number of articles in the journals Corrosion and Corrosion Science written by authors at U.S. universities vs. by authors at U.S. institutions other than academic, tracked every other year between 1985 and 2007. Articles on property degradation in nonmetals invariably appear in specialized journals in polymer science, composites, ceramics, and so on.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 55 40% 35% 30% 25% Share (%) 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 2000 2006 2004 2005 2003 2002 2007 2001 1990 1996 1998 1999 1989 1994 1995 1992 1993 1997 1991 Year FIGURE 2-8  Share of papers from the Journal of Materials Research and Journal of Materials Science Figure 2-8.eps written by authors with U.S. affiliations. 1,400 1,200 Number of Documents 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Year FIGURE 2-9  Number of documents on corrosion entered into the Defense Technical Information Cen- Figure 2-9.eps ter (DTIC) database. SOURCE: Advanced Materials and Processes Technology Information Analysis Center (AMPTIAC). bitmap image with mask & vector on righthand axis

56 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n ate education over the 2- to 5-year time frame necessary for students to earn their degrees. These funding trends will also lead to a decline in the supply of corrosion specialists as well as in the number of papers on research in corrosion. Since graduate schooling is the leading way to educate corrosion specialists and since graduate work is funded by research grants, it is reasonable to suppose that the supply of corrosion specialists is almost directly proportional to the number of grants and the total dollar value just as it is dependent on the number of faculty conducting corrosion research. To attract graduate students who eventually become corrosion specialists, university engineering programs offer graduate research assis- tantships (GRAs). Universities must have the financial resources to offer a GRA, which involves a research stipend, tuition, and health insurance, not to mention indirect costs of roughly 50 percent. R&D programs at universities and the funding of GRAs rely heavily on research grants and/or contracts. Much of this funding comes from the federal government and various state government agencies; some comes from industry and private foundations. Partial funding has recently been offered by technical societies. How much does it cost to produce a corrosion expert through graduate edu- cation? The national average for funding a faculty member specializing in cor- rosion is $200,000, with wide variation. This amount supports between two and four graduate students or two postdoctoral research associates, assuming annual costs of $50,000 per student plus associated experimental and equipment costs as well as faculty time, raising the yearly costs to $80,000 to $100,000 per student. A master’s-level student takes 2 years to complete the program, while a Ph.D. s ­ tudent takes 4-5 years. Overhead costs are about a third of the total. So the costs of educating a corrosion specialist are about $200,000 for a master’s-level corrosion expert ($80,000 to $100,000 per year for 2 years) and $320,000 to $500,000 for a Ph.D.-level corrosion expert ($80,000 to $100,000 per year for 4-5 years). These numbers can be used to estimate how many new corrosion experts can be created for a given increment of research funding. CONTINUING Corrosion EDUCATION Those engineers in the upper part of the corrosion workforce pyramid (Fig- ure 2-1), specialists who hold M.S. or Ph.D. degrees in corrosion, typically do not need to undertake continuing education except perhaps to learn a new technique or refresh their knowledge in it or an area they do not typically use, such as when moving to a new employer in a different technical area. Engineers in the midsections of the pyramid—that is, those with a bacca­ laureate in engineering but without significant corrosion knowledge—can learn about corrosion in the workplace by means of employer-sponsored short courses that teach technical skills or basic knowledge. Few employers hire corrosion experts.

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 57 Rather, when they face complex corrosion problems they contract with technology consultants, who in turn employ corrosion specialists. This trend occurs with even greater frequency in smaller or medium-sized organizations, where employees are valued for their ability to perform many multidisciplinary tasks. Such employers often hire capable bachelor’s-level engineers who can gain further competence through on-the-job training in corrosion design, mitigation, prevention, and con- trol, supplemented by continuing education as time and resources permit. This approach can help a company or government organization produce its own cadre of corrosion-knowledgeable engineers (and in some instances with fur- ther and more extensive knowledge-based education can even produce corrosion specialists). Another approach to enhancing corrosion knowledge could involve extramural or internal short courses. The former would involve additional living and travel expenses for someone attending classes at remote sites. Internal learn- ing opportunities offered in nominally 1- or 2-hour segments during the normal workweek can include in-house distance or online learning, with employees still fulfilling most of their job functions. It would make sense to tap employees who seem predisposed, by virtue of their technical background (in, for example, chemistry), competence, or general technical promise, to be able to acquire corrosion expertise (see Box 2-6). The continuing education in this instance would typically include from 3 to 10 years of experiential training combined with short courses and, possibly, stays at uni- versities. One downside of this approach is that although these employees would emerge with good skills, they would probably have some gaps in fundamental knowledge compared to traditionally educated university graduates. This approach n ­ one­theless would be superior to leaving the organization with no corrosion exper- tise. Clearly the duration of the on-the-job training cycle depends primarily on the BOX 2-6 Cost of Producing a Corrosion Expert by Means of Continuing Education It would be useful to estimate an organization’s total cost for producing a corrosion expert in this way. It can take from 3 to 5 years for a new, B.S.-level engineer to be fully productive, with much of this time needed for learning operating processes and applications. While most new employees will require additional formal education, all must receive on-the-job training. Assum­ing that (1) the typical burdened annual labor cost for an engineer is $200,000 per year and (2) the process of learning about corrosion requires up to 50 percent of that engineer’s time over 5 years on the job before that engineer can be declared a corrosion specialist, the prorated cost to that organization would be $600,000 per expert (50 percent × $200,000 per year × 5 yr = $500,000, with another $100,000 for tuition and off-site travel = $600,000).

58 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n individual’s capability and the availability of experienced, qualified mentors as well as the scientific or technical complexity of the job assignments. An organization might consider sponsoring an employee as a full- or part-time student to earn an advanced academic degree. The corrosion workforce pyramid (Figure 2-1) shows that the foundation of the ideal corrosion workforce is a team of corrosion-aware and corrosion- k ­ nowledgeable technologists. This segment of the workforce includes maintainers, technologists, and some procurement, production, and maintenance officials who require only minimal corrosion knowledge. For this segment, continuing education in the form of informal on-the-job training and formal short courses is a cost- e ­ ffective way to develop more productive and competent employees. In particular it can be useful for workers who perform routine and repetitive duties. Another reason for offering courses to technologists is for their qualification and certification. A certificate from a knowledgeable, independent third party proves that a worker is qualified to perform a particular procedure (e.g., surface preparation, application of coatings and/or linings, cathodic protection) or to inspect systems or components for the integrity of painted, coated, or lined systems, for example. Job performance in this sector of the workforce can be enhanced when these employees have a better understanding of corrosion’s impact. They will be able to identify cor- rosion and proactively prevent it from degrading the performance and durability of the particular system or piece of equipment they are maintaining. Because short courses are an essential element of continuing education, the committee carried out a search for such courses. Appendix D provides an overview of the short courses that the committee is aware of (there may be others of which the committee is not aware). Short courses cost from $100 to $3,800 depending on their length, the means of instruction, and the organization providing the instruction. Table 2-1 summarizes the material in Appendix D organized roughly according to the categories in the corrosion workforce pyramid. TABLE 2-1  Courses Organized into Basic or Advanced Generic Corrosion, System- or Technology-Specific Groupings Plus Additional Certification or Training Courses Category Course Provider Structure Focus Advanced (post- Penn State Short course, with lab General B.S.) courses on North Dakota State Short course, with lab General generic corrosion ASM Short course, without lab General Society of Automotive Short course, without lab General/automotive Engineers Ohio State University Distance learning General continues

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 59 TABLE 2-1  Continued Category Course Provider Structure Focus Introductory NACE Short course, with lab General (undergraduate) Corrosion College Short course, with lab General courses on Technology Training, Inc. Short course without lab General generic corrosion Western States Corrosion Short course without lab General Seminar Applied courses University of Kansas Short course with lab Aircraft on platform- or NACE Short course with lab Pipeline system-specific Short course with lab Refining industry corrosion Short course with lab Offshore Short course with lab Shipboard Oklahoma State University Short course without lab Pipeline Short course without lab Internal Appalachian Underground Short course without lab Pipeline (basic) Short course without lab Pipeline (advanced) Short course without lab Water and wastewater Short course without lab Coatings Corrosion Clinic Short course without lab Defense industry Short course without lab Automotive industry Center for Professional Short course without lab Oil and gas industry Advancement Corrosion Courses Short course without lab Oil and gas industry PetroSkills, LLC Short course without lab Oil and gas industry Courses Oklahoma State University Short course without lab External on applied Purdue Underground Short course without lab Cathodic protection technology- Short Course (basic) specific corrosion Short course without lab Cathodic protection (advanced) Short course without lab Coatings Technology Training, Inc. Short course without lab Corrosion control techniques Western States Corrosion Short course without lab Corrosion fundamentals Seminar Short course without lab Intermediate-level corrosion Short course without lab Advanced-level corrosion Supplemental Defense Acquisition Online Corrosion prevention and corrosion University control awareness Army Corrosion Training Online Basic corrosion control (CTC) course Training to obtain NACE Short course with lab Coatings Inspector (1) a certificate or Short course with lab Coatings Inspector (2) license Short course with lab Cathodic protection NOTE: ASM, American Society for Materials International; CTC, Concurrent Technologies Corporation.

60 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n Short courses are primarily taught by three types of organizations: professional societies, postsecondary institutions, and private companies. Appendix D lists the organizations that are now regularly offering extramural corrosion training and education, along with some of the courses and administrative and course content details. Topics range from the basic and fundamental—as might be expected, a course entitled Corrosion Basics—to the focused and specific, such as one entitled Corrosion in Microelectronics. Corrosion is also covered in some short courses in the context of overall component design—for example, the ASME course Mechani- cal Insulation Design. All the courses cover the following: • Introductory courses giving an overview of corrosion and its importance for society; • The mechanisms of corrosion, including electrochemical, pitting, and cracking and its thermodynamic and kinetic aspects; • Materials-specific classes covering both materials selection and how corro- sion mechanisms vary between materials; • Corrosion control by cathodic and anodic means and by coatings; • The detection of corrosion; and • Sector-specific courses in sectors such the military, pipelines, the automo- tive industry, and aircraft applications. Table 2-2 summarizes the committee’s analysis of how different levels of the workforce would benefit from the courses available. Summary of findings The committee has found that corrosion technologists are often trained on the job by means of short courses focused on defined sets of skills and on responses to generally known sets of conditions that are often repeated over and over again. It has also found that only a fraction of U.S. undergraduate MSE students are exposed to a course with detailed information on corrosion. The availability of such a course depends on faculty interest and expertise, as well as on how the teaching of corrosion fares in competition with other demands on the curriculum. In other design and engineering disciplines, undergraduate engineering students typically learn little about materials selection and usually have no more than one or two lectures on corrosion, often none. Whereas graduate engineering students specializing in corrosion get formal training in it, graduate MSE students are typically not required to take a course in corrosion; moreover, such courses are only offered in departments where there is a faculty member with expertise in corrosion. The availability of teachers for corrosion depends in turn on the health

An Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n 61 TABLE 2-2  How Continuing Education Courses Like Those Listed in Appendix D Would Benefit the Corrosion Workforce Level of Training Options and Outcomes Corrosion Level of Education Expertise and/or Training Short Courses Online Courses Expert Ph.D. corrosion faculty n/a n/a Ph.D. Would be a n/a refresher M.S. with extensive on-the- Would supplement n/a job training knowledge Highly M.S. with on-the-job training Would supplement n/a knowledgeable knowledge B.S. in corrosion field with Would supplement n/a extensive on-the-job training knowledge Knowledgeable Ph.D. in related field with no Would increase Would increase knowledge specific corrosion experience knowledge B.S. with on-the-job training Would supplement Would increase knowledge knowledge B.S. in noncorrosion field Would increase Would increase knowledge with extensive on-the-job knowledge training Minimally B.S. in noncorrosion field n/a Could increase corrosion knowledgeable with minimal on-the-job awareness and job performance training No degree but on-the-job n/a Could increase corrosion training awareness and job performance Minimal to Procurement official with n/a Could increase corrosion none: nontechnical degree awareness and job performance Familiarity would be Maintenance and production n/a Could increase corrosion beneficial worker with trade school awareness and job effectiveness education Maintenance and production n/a Could increase corrosion worker with high school awareness and job effectiveness education Maintenance technicians and n/a Could increase corrosion military personnel awareness and job effectiveness NOTE: n/a means the committee believes the course would not benefit that category of worker relative to its effort or cost.

62 Assessment of C o r ro s i o n E d u c at i o n of the corrosion research community and therefore on the availability of funding for that research. The committee has found that there are many short courses available for the continuing education of engineers and technologists of many different skill and education levels in addition to on-the-job training programs (see Appendix D). Since continuing education often imparts specific skills in specific technologies during intensive, usually 2- to 5-day extramural courses, it often leaves gaps in the employee’s fundamental knowledge base (compared with the traditionally educated university graduate who takes semester-long courses where course prerequisites and out-of-class assignments assure a better learning of corrosion fundamentals). In the committee’s opinion, anything learned from short courses, while beneficial, is not as deep as the learning from a rigorous corrosion education curriculum that teaches basic science, engineering, and mathematics and gives an engineer the intellectual skills to perform complex tasks, create new materials and innovative processes, and solve difficult problems that enable the control and mitigation of corrosion.

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The threat from the degradation of materials in the engineered products that drive our economy, keep our citizenry healthy, and keep us safe from terrorism and belligerent threats has been well documented over the years. And yet little effort appears to have been made to apply the nation's engineering community to developing a better understanding of corrosion and the mitigation of its effects.

The engineering workforce must have a solid understanding of the physical and chemical bases of corrosion, as well as an understanding of the engineering issues surrounding corrosion and corrosion abatement. Nonetheless, corrosion engineering is not a required course in the curriculum of most bachelor degree programs in MSE and related engineering fields, and in many programs, the subject is not even available. As a result, most bachelor-level graduates of materials- and design-related programs have an inadequate background in corrosion engineering principles and practices.

To combat this problem, the book makes a number of short- and long-term recommendations to industry and government agencies, educational institutions, and communities to increase education and awareness, and ultimately give the incoming workforce the knowledge they need.

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