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12 NOVEMBER 2017 MATERIALS PERFORMANCE NACE INTERNATIONAL: VOL. 56, NO. 11 VIEWPOINT Over the Years— Corrosion of Steel in Concrete Next year, NACE International is going to celebrate its 75th anniversary and I have been a member for the last 35 of those 75 years. I attended my first NACE conference 30 years ago in 1987, a momentous year for me. Corrosion of steel in concrete was an up-and-coming subject and this was my first opportunity to share my experiences with the pioneers of the technolog y and an international audience. At that time NACE had one committee working on a single standard for cathodic protection (CP) of steel in concrete. That year the papers from the symposium on corrosion of steel in con- crete were bound into a book and sold by NACE, including my own paper on the research and trials on CP of steel in concrete that my colleagues and I had been undertaking in the United Kingdom and applying to bridges and buildings. As a consequence of that first visit and a follow-up trip to Washington, DC on my way home to London, I was offered the opportunity to work for the Strategic Highway Research Pro- gram (SHRP) and spent from 1989 to 1990 based in Washington meeting and working with some of the leading U.S., Canadian, and world experts in corrosion of steel in concrete. Although I returned to the United Kingdom after my time at SHRP, I have never missed a NACE annual conference since then and I have been active as a Task Group (TG) chair, vice chair, and member of the TGs relating to corrosion in concrete. I would urge as many members as possible to go to the annual confer- ence and, while the technical symposia are very important, members should attend the technical committee meetings where much of the technical discussion occurs in a more free- f lowing way than is possible in the symposia. Since that first NACE standard on CP of steel in concrete, ini- tially published in 1990, Specific Technolog y Group 1, which cov- ers corrosion of steel in concrete, now has over 20 TGs writing and revising the 20-plus standard practice, test method, and report documents directly under its control, as well as others with significant content regarding this topic. We now have a large "toolbox" of corrosion control tech- niques for steel in concrete including impressed current and gal- vanic CP, electrochemical chloride extraction, and realkaliza- tion, chemical corrosion inhibitors, and a wide range of technical coatings to control water, water vapor, and gas ingress and egress in concrete. NACE and its members cooperate with John P. Broomfield, FNACE, NACE International other associations and standards-writing bodies worldwide to provide guidance to those whose duty it is to ensure we have a durable built infrastructure, kept in good working order. When impressed current CP (ICCP) was first developed there was a limited range of anodes, primarily designed for bridge decks, such as silicon iron "pancake" anodes in conductive coke breeze asphalt and a conductive mastic in slots cut into the con- crete cover. Then the traditional mixed metal oxide titanium expanded mesh anode was offered, first with a concrete overlay and then in an expanded ribbon form for inserting in slots in the concrete cover. As applications expanded from bridge decks to include substructures, columns, and building elevations, a range of coatings was developed from carbon pigmented technical coatings to thermal-sprayed zinc and alloys to conductive sprayed cementitious coatings. Individual probe anodes linked into zones are also available. This makes ICCP very versatile but at the same time other technologies were being developed such as galvanic anodes, first used in large applications by the U.S. Florida Department of Transportation and now also available in a wide range of coatings, overlays, and probe-type anodes. I would urge as many members as possible to go to the annual conference and, while the technical symposia are very important, members should attend the technical committee meetings where much of the technical discussion occurs in a more free-flowing way than is possible in the symposia. NACE has kept pace with these developments with stan- dards, test methods, and state-of the art reports. It is important that NACE members get involved in writing these documents as well as understanding developing technologies. The NACE web site means that members from all over the world can contribute to the development of NACE documents, even if they cannot attend conference and TG meetings. NACE members should par- ticipate in any way they can to help ensure that NACE docu- ments cover the technologies of the corrosion control industry, that they are technically sound, and are fully addressing the needs of the industries we serve in.