Launch of British Corrosion Journal online archive broadens access to classic papers

I am pleased by the decision by Maney to digitise and make available online the full range of articles published in British Corrosion Journal. The placing of the journal online provides ready access to 163 issues published between 1965 and 2002. In recognition of this, I have been asked to write something about the journal and, perhaps more controversially, draw up a selection of papers for ‘highly recommended’ re-reading.

Some of our ‘more experienced’ readers might just remember the inauguration of the British Corrosion Journal (BCJ), the precursor to Corrosion Engineering Science and Technology (CEST). BCJ was founded in 1965 to reflect the corrosion interests of a number of professional bodies which at that time collaborated via the British Joint Corrosion Group, including the Iron and Steel Institute, the Institute of Metals and the Society of Chemical Industry, and had the support of many other aligned societies, including the Association of Corrosion Engineers. The initial (and continuing) objectives of BCJ were to promote and disseminate the discipline of corrosion and corrosion prevention as an independent area of scientific and engineering expertise. The alternative outlet at that time, Corrosion Science, reflected a far more academic view.

The promotional objective in particular continues to resonate today, as do other aspects of the journal’s early coverage: a strong focus on corrosion engineering and technology as well as corrosion science; concern over the failure to apply the principles of corrosion engineering at an early stage of the design process; and the cost of corrosion to industry and society. The early issues still convey the enthusiasm of the new interdisciplinary activity, both in the technical papers and in the journal’s news and features (a distinguishing feature of the journal that continues), and include classic papers that remain relevant to today’s practitioners. The papers mentioned below are, for reasons of space and time, highly selective, and I strongly encourage readers to explore the archive in the light of their own personal interests.

Until recently early papers were only available to loyal subscribers. Luckily the former UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), through the corrosion research group of Professor Ken Ross, took BCJ from the first issue; consequently, as an academic based in Manchester, I have always been able to consult the early papers at will. They make interesting reading, sometimes quite breathtaking in their quality and depth, many still of some relevance today. At first BCJ was able to publish six issues per year, clearly providing an outlet for pent-up demand. After a few years perhaps the initial excitement abated and the publication rate settled down at four issues every year and it is only in the last few years that CEST has been able to return to six, and more recently seven, issues per year. The early papers house a treasure trove of research in now common fields of endeavour. I can cite three examples. My own field of interest, atmospheric corrosion, was dominated for around 40 years by W. H. J. Vernon, yet no images of the man appear to exist. However, I was pleased to find a rare picture of him in a tribute on his eightieth birthday1 printed in an early issue of BCJ. More recently I have been reviewing the performance of duplex painted/metal spray protective finishes and much valuable information exists in the work of Hudson2 and Stanners,3,4 for example, from which the reasoning behind some of the current recommendations for this system can be found. For those with a historical bent, Hudson’s review5 of 40 years of steel industry research on corrosion holds much of interest.

Ulick R. Evans, another pioneer in corrosion and oxidation studies, celebrated his eightieth birthday alongside Vernon’s.1 An overview of his life’s work on iron oxidation is provided in his EFC Gold Medal lecture,6 and his work with Taylor on corrosion in polluted atmospheres7 also featured in the early years of the journal.

In 1979, the Metals Society (formed by the merger of the Iron and Steel Institute and the Institute of Metals in 1974), which then published the journal, inaugurated the Guy Bengough award for the best paper published in BCJ / CEST in the preceding two calendar years. Again, the history of this can be examined in the pages of the early issues and I discovered that Bengough, who was instrumental in leading corrosion interests in the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research (DISR), was the first of (so far) only three fellows of the Royal Society elected on the basis of their contributions to corrosion science (the others being Evans and Graham Wood). Incidentally, Bengough was succeeded by Vernon at the DISR; nowadays this activity is continued at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

NPL has of course enjoyed a close relationship with the journal since its beginning: it was well represented in the founding editorial committee and two long-serving editors, Dora Brasher and Tony Mercer, worked at NPL for much of their careers. (Another Editor, Paul McIntyre, had a long standing association with the National Corrosion Service, based at NPL.) The publication of NPL’s high quality work on passivation and inhibition8^–17 in liquids and wet films was a distinctive feature of the journal in the 1960s and 1970s; and this was of course closely linked to the study of atmospheric corrosion.18 Under their guidance, the journal provided a strong focus for publication of advances in inhibitors and inhibition, of which Gunter Schmitt’s authoritative review on inhibitors for acid media can be identified as having been a resource of continuing value to researchers.19

Subsequently, NPL’s influential research on corrosion pitting and corrosion fatigue, led by Alan Turnbull, was also regularly published in the journal,20^–22 together with work on corrosion of metal matrix composites23 and publications arising from collaboration with the chemical24 and other25,26 industry sectors. The journal also had the good fortune to publish some of the early seminal work of Parkins and colleagues on the interaction of stress and corrosion, and the development of methods such as the slow strain rate test to assess the vulnerability of materials to these processes.27^–29 The engineering challenges relating to these processes were the subject of his EFC Gold Medal address30 published in 1996.

Another of BCJ’s Editors, Hector Campbell, made significant contributions to the understanding of corrosion of non-ferrous alloys,31 in particular of pitting in copper alloys, in both fresh water and marine32 environments. Much of this work appeared in reports from the British Non-Ferrous Research Association (BNF) before the foundation of the journal, as nicely summarised in the review by Vic Lucey.33 Subsequently Hector became interested in the effects of organic and biofilms in pipework and was involved in the development of assays to characterise these films.34 Roger Francis, a former colleague of Hector’s at BNF, also published extensively on the behaviour of bronzes and other copper alloys in marine environaments.32,35,36

Also worthy of note is the series of ‘silver jubilee reviews’ commissioned to mark the journal’s twenty-fifth volume in 1990. The contributors were Geoff Lloyd on atmospheric corrosion,18 John Sykes on electrochemical methods37 and Roger Newman and Robin Procter on stress corrosion cracking.38

A number of the papers mentioned above20,22,23,35,36,38 were recipients of the Bengough Award, and many of the other winners over the history of the journal39^–67 are well worth revisiting. In particular, the papers by John Oldfield and John Dawson on crevice corrosion of stainless steel40,41 have clearly been influential; Oldfield later won the award again for a paper51 written with Brian Todd on what was then the very topical subject of stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel in swimming pool environments. The first Bengough winning paper, by L. M. Callow, Tony Richardson and Dawson on polarisation resistance monitoring,39 is a good example of the corrosion engineering approach to which BCJ aspired, and the journal was fortunate to have the benefit of Tony’s advice as an Editorial Board member for over two decades from the early 1980s.

So, whether you are interested in the early days of corrosion in the UK and elsewhere, curious about what Evans,6,7 Stanners,4,5 Edeleanu,45,68,69 Parkins,27^–29 Campbell,31,32,34 Brasher and Mercer,8^–13 Turnbull21^–26 and others were getting up to, or just want to consult one of the former Bengough award papers, the opportunity now lies before you. I commend our archives to you all.

Stuart Lyon

Editor