The Australasian Corrosion Association (ACA) (Blackburn, Victoria, Australia) recently concluded its Corrosion & Prevention 2017 (C&P 2017) conference and trade show, with nearly 500 delegates from every continent except Antarctica attending lectures, seminars, and workshops.
The ACA is an organization that works with academia and industry throughout the Australasia region to research all aspects of corrosion to support best practices in corrosion management.
Held from Nov. 12-15, 2017, at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, the conference brings together corrosion practitioners, researchers, asset owners, and operators from around the world in order to promote a better understanding of corrosion mitigation. The annual event showcases and promotes all efforts to minimize the impact of corrosion, which costs industry and governments around the world billions of dollars each year to mitigate and repair, the ACA says.
The 2017 Thompson Memorial Lecture was delivered by Maria Forsyth, a professor and chair of electromaterials and corrosion sciences at Deakin University (Geelong, Victoria, Australia). Her lecture—titled “Controlling Corrosion with Chemistry”—explained how using chemistry to control corrosion ranges from designing metallic coatings through to creating oxides on a metal substrate or protective polymeric coatings and using chemical additives in a given environment to produce inhibited surfaces.
The Thompson Memorial Lecture commemorates the work of corrosion science pioneer Percival “P.F.” Thompson, and it has been delivered every year at the ACA's annual conference since 1951. A special guest at this year’s conference was David Thompson, his son and a current metallurgist.
“So many people approached me [at the conference] to say they knew people whom I had either trained or worked with during the course of my career,” Thompson says.
In addition to the conference, the event’s trade show consisted of 72 exhibition booths and attracted more than 200 additional people to the event, according to event organizers. The range of exhibitors included materials suppliers, equipment vendors, specialist contractors, and consultants.
The C&P 2018 event will be held in South Australia’s capital city of Adelaide.