Reducing corrosion costs through reliability centered design

A Federal Highway Administration study published in 2001 indicated that corrosion costs the US economy $276B/year, or 3.1% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). This study was based upon an analysis of twenty-six individual sectors of the US economy. In response to the conclusions, Congress directed the DOD, one of the sectors examined in the study, to implement a focused, Department wide program to address the problem. Congress later directed DOD to sponsor the National Research Council to investigate the curricula at our Nation's institutes of higher learning and make recommendations to improve the corrosion education that undergraduate engineering students receive. Improving engineering education will help reduce the cost of corrosion. Taking full advantage of improved skills, however, while enabling the current workforce to effectively help in the fight, will require the development, promotion, and institutionalization of practical corrosion analysis tools. To ensure that potential cost reductions are maximized, the discipline employing these proposed tools must currently play an active role in product design and sustainment, and the tools must be integrated into currently accepted practices. Since reliability engineers routinely work with designers, maintainers, and other specialties that support the entire product life-cycle, they possess an understanding of system-level design and aging far exceeding that possessed by designers and most, if not all, other engineering disciplines. This perspective, if appropriately focused towards corrosion, provides the opportunity for the reliability community to evolve and improve its current analytical processes, thus helping break down the barriers that have long impeded the implementation of effective corrosion prevention and control (CP&C) practices.