The COVID-19 coronavirus is a worldwide concern affecting all of us, including those in the corrosion prevention and protective coatings industries. As many employees and contractors are forced to the sidelines or to work from home, this is a great time to maintain your professional certifications or learn a new skill. We’ve gathered information about online learning, certification and webinar opportunities to keep your skill set up-to-date or to prepare for that certification exam you’ve been putting off.
For those interested in becoming a coating inspector, the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) is offering a discount on their coating inspector level 1 and level 2 courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course NACE also offers a plethora of other online education courses that may be taken with or without an exam for professional development hours, such as:
- Basic Corrosion
- Corrosion Prevention & Control (CPC) Management eCourse
- Introduction to Coatings Inspection eCourse (ICI)
- Math for the Coatings Professional
- Cathodic Protection Fundamentals: Math & Electricity eCourse
- Power Industry Corrosion Concepts eCourse
- Surface Preparation
Recognizing that COVID-19 is having a huge impact on the way we work in the corrosion prevention industry, the Australasian Corrosion Association (ACA) is hosting a “Working through COVID-19 for the Corrosion Industry” online event with featured guest speakers on April 22, 2020. More information and free registration are available on the ACA website.
ASTM International has converted two of their classes (Corrosion Testing: Application and Use of Salt Fog, Humidity, Cyclic and Gas Tests –and – Corrosion Testing, Measurement, and Monitoring: Application and Use of Electrochemical Techniques) to a virtual class setting.
The Corrosion Clinic of WebCorr Corrosion Consulting Services Singapore offers a wide variety of corrosion-related online and distance learning training courses, including topics such as:
- A Basic Course in Corrosion Control and Prevention
- Protective Coatings: Inspection, Maintenance and Repair
- An Advanced Course in Cathodic Protection – Specification, Design, Commissioning, Testing and Monitoring
- External Pipeline Integrity Assessment and Composite Repairs
- Internal Pipeline Integrity Assessment and Pigging Technology
- Corrosion Control by Chemical Treatment
- Welding and Weldment Metallurgy: Processes, Procedures, Inspection and Failure Prevention
- Marine Corrosion, Causes and Prevention
- Risk-based Inspection
- And many more
Welded metals are often prone to corrosion. The American Welding Society (AWS Learning) has numerous online courses that feature interactive videos, animated graphics and narration. These courses cover welding, materials science and other topics of interest to corrosion professionals. Educational courses include:
- Welding Fundamentals – Welding terminology and common welding processes
- Welding Supervisor – A bundle of courses to prepare for the CWS instructor-led seminar and exam
- Destructive Testing – Principals and performance of tests
- Nondestructive Testing – Principals and performance of nondestructive tests
- Metallurgy – Fundamental principles of metals as they apply to welding
- Welding Safety – Best practices
A course focusing on salt spray testing and accelerated corrosion testing is offered by the National Association for Surface Finishing, for which you’ll receive one credit toward certification as a Master Surface Finisher.
You can also maintain or expand your knowledge on a wide variety of topics through more informal courses offered on Coursera, Udemy, edX and other similar general audience websites. This is also a good way to branch out and get a quick introduction to an entirely new skill such as software development or brush up on mathematics. For example, a search for “corrosion”, “oil and gas”, “chemistry” or “materials” returns dozens of free or low-cost courses on these platforms.
Another free offering is Google Scholar, which is intended to return search results of scientific and technical material published in peer-reviewed academic journals and textbooks. A simple search of “corrosion cathodic protection” displays more than enough reading material to keep you productively occupied, including the classic “Handbook of Cathodic Protection” textbook. Although some search results lead to just an abstract and an offer to purchase the full article, links to a PDF file provide the full text for free (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Searching for scientific and technical books and articles on Google Scholar.
Finally, be sure to visit our sister sites Trenchlesspedia and Workplace Testing for expert content related to oil & gas, trenchless construction and worksite safety.