NACE International recently welcomed students to the fourth annual University Student Design and Applied Solutions Competition (USDASC), a student competition focused on designing technology for corrosion control. The contest took place at NACE’s training center in April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA.
According to event organizers, the USDASC program was developed to introduce corrosion concepts to university students and foster the innovation and creativity that the industry needs to solve future corrosion problems. Each year, the competition gives students an opportunity to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world problems by replicating conditions encountered by corrosion professionals.
The 2019 competition hosted engineering students from Arizona State University (Tempe, Arizona, USA); George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia, USA); Louisiana State University (LSU) (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA); the Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA); the U.S. Military Academy (Army) (West Point, New York, USA); and the U.S. Naval Academy (Navy) (Annapolis, Maryland, USA).
Teams introduced their technologies in oral presentations, followed by a live demonstration of their devices. Each team’s device navigated a small entrance of a coated steel structure designed to replicate the conditions of a pipeline, fuel tank, or aircraft fuselage. Once inside the structure, each device had to detect the presence of corrosion or a coating defect and report data back to the team.
The students’ corrosion detection systems were presented to the judging panel. Judges included Harvey Hack, past president of NACE International and senior advisory engineer at Northrop Grumman; Neil Thompson, FNACE, a past president of the NACE International Foundation, and past president of NACE International; and Rajesh Bose, an inspection engineer at BP. The panel says it was impressed with the students’ engineering skills, problem solving, teamwork, strategy, and resourcefulness.
At the end of the competition, it was the Navy team that came in first place, followed by George Mason University in second place and the Air Force in third place.
Source: USDASC, www.usdasc.com.