Corrosioneering July, 2002 Message from the Technical Editor

Welcome to the fourth issue of Corrosioneering, the On-Line Corrosion Journal. This issue of Corrosioneering marks our first anniversary on the web. We hope you find it interesting and informative.

Past issues of this journal have dealt with specific technologies or industries, but this time we're trying to address a much larger question, the corrosion of the infrastructure. A recent study of the costs of corrosion puts the cost to the United States economy at $276 billion per year. The economic costs are bad enough, but injuries and even deaths can occur if corrosion control is not done correctly. The pictures above show corrosion failures that resulted in multiple deaths or injuries. They illustrate why corrosion control is so important-no price can be put on human life or on pain and suffering.

The articles we have assembled here show various aspects of corrosion control on structures ranging from concrete highway bridges to pipelines. According to the costs study we cited above, corrosion of water piping is the most expensive single type of corrosion. We have included several articles on water systems, and others on pipelines, highway bridges, buildings and other components of the infrastructure. We even have an article on the effects of sunlight on corrosion.

Over the past year, we've had some changes in how we are thinking about Corrosioneering. It costs money to produce this journal, and we have introduced a system of fees for past issues of the journal. Our intent is to make the current issue of the publication free to all readers, and we hope that the minimal fee charged for back issues is acceptable to our readership. Let us know how you feel on this or any other subject.

Interested readers and potential authors may wish to look at our list of upcoming issues, which indicates that we'll be revisiting topics that have been discussed in the past. We're also interested in articles on subjects that don't fit into these narrow areas. If you have a report that we should share with our worldwide audience, or if you have a subject you'd like us to address, let us know. We're always interested in how we're serving you, our readers.

Bob Heidersbach
Technical Editor