I want to write letters such as this periodically to keep you updated on the happenings at the FCC and so that you have a reason to keep checking the FCC home page. Unfortunately I donŐt have much time to maintain the home page so modifications will happen slowly.
I have received notes from several of you, which is great. Please get in touch when you have a chance. Some of you have provided additions to the alumni list, which is woefully incorrect and incomplete. Please help me out with that if you can. Current addresses would be appreciated.
The FCC alumni have already been extremely useful to me, and I am very excited about expanding my interactions with you all. A special thanks goes to Mike Budinski who gave my name to a friend of his at 3M. That connection resulted in an invitation for me to make a presentation in the 3M Technical Forum at their facility in Austin, TX, and eventually may lead to further interactions with 3M in the area of corrosion of electronic materials. Some of the FCC alumni have already earmarked their OSU charitable donations to come to the FCC, and an account has been set up to receive them. So please remember to direct your donations so that they will be used where you want them to! A $5000 donation was made to the FCC by Armco Steel in Middletown. That money will be used to partially support Patrick Schmutz, who is from Ecole Ploytechnique in Lausanne, Switzerland, and is planning to post-doc at the FCC starting in the Fall. I hope that he will be able to study the effects of temperature on the pitting corrosion of ferritic stainless steels.
I have just returned from NACE Corrosion 96 in Denver. Many FCC alums were at the conference, and we had a terrific reunion dinner Tuesday night. Twenty people showed up including: Roger Staehle, Gustavo Cragnolino, Carl Cron, Mirna Urquidi-Macdonald (Digby was home in State College working!), Arun Agarwal, Randy John, Bruce Miglin, Jim Skogsberg, Gordon Holcomb, Seth Silverman (who recently left Shell to join the NACE staff), Raul Rebak (who recently took a job with Cabot in Kokomo), Mark Yunovich (the most recent FCC graduate, now working at CC Technologies in Columbus), Xuejin Zheng, and Yolanda Brondial (a visitor from the Philippines for the last 6 months). We ate at a restaurant called Strings. The food was excellent, and everyone had a great time. Plan now to join us next year in New Orleans.
Other FCC alumni at the meeting who couldnŐt make it to dinner include: Howard Pickering, Joe Payer, Tom Murata, and Jesse Lumsden.
A special note of congratulations goes to Toshio Shibata, a onetime visiting scientist at the FCC, for receiving the 1996 Whitney Award, which is perhaps the most prestigious award given to a corrosion scientist.
I also want to tell you about recent developments at the FCC. The contract from AFOSR finally was put in place in February, after long delays partially related to the government shutdowns. As a result of this contract, we have been able to start ordering equipment for the lab. So far, an analytical balance, a water deionization system, a potentiostat, an impedance system, an image acquisition, storage, and analysis system, and 4 computers have been purchased. In March a post-doc joined the group. Akshey Sehgal graduated last year from Penn State, having worked under Prof. Pickering. He then spent almost a year there as a post-doc with Prof. Macdonald. Akshey will be working on the Air Force project and has already been a tremendous help to me in getting the lab together.
A list of the ongoing projects is available in the first Annual Newsletter , which you can reach from the FCC home page. A number of new activities are being developed. A proposal is in to the Edison Welding Institute to study the corrosion and stress corrosion properties of Al alloy welds made by a new and exciting technique, friction stir welding. I have also formed a team that is competing for a large award ($1M/yr for 5 yrs) to be made by AFOSR to study the role of chromates in the corrosion inhibition of Al alloys. The team includes Prof. R. McCreery from the Chemistry Dept. at OSU, Dr. Hugh Isaacs from Brookhaven National Lab, Dr. Martin Kendig from Rockwell Science Center, Prof. Clive Clayton from SUNY Stonybrook, and Dr. Rich Granata from Lehigh. As a result of a white paper we wrote, we have been asked to submit a full proposal. The competition for this award will be fierce, but I believe this team I have assembled has a VERY good chance of winning!
One other activity taking place in the FCC is being performed by Dan Kramer, one of the best students in this yearŐs senior class, as part of his senior research project. Dan is studying a problem that has been brought to us by Anchor Products, a small company in the Cleveland area. They form, phosphate coat, and paint various products. One of their products has not been able to go through their line without corroding for the past 6 months. Dan is making some measurements to help them understand this, and hopefully to come up with a fix.
Thanks to all for your support. I will try my best to continue to communicate.
Jerry