Dr. Barbara A. Shaw, Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics and Corrosion Short Course Director, has announced the lecture and laboratory topics for the 2005 Corrosion Short Course (see below). Co-sponsored by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Penn State Corrosion Center, Gamry Instruments, and Molecular Imaging, this course features morning lectures on the fundamentals of corrosion and afternoon, hands-on laboratory sessions that highlight the most commonly used experiments to assess corrosion. Course instructors include Dr. Gerald Frankel, associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State University and director of the Fontana Corrosion Center; Dr. Rudolph Buchheit, professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State University; Dr. Howard Pickering, Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State University; and Dr. Barbara A. Shaw.

This year's lecture topics include the following:

Thermodynamics of corrosion
Kinetics of corrosion
Polarization
Corrosion rate measurement techniques
Passivity/localized corrosion
Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
Scanning probe methods for evaluating corrosion
Electrochemical noise analysis
Statistical analysis of corrosion data
Corrosion inhibitors

The laboratory sessions include the following topics:
Corrosion potential measurements
Polarization resistance
Potentiostatic and potentiodynamic polarization
Galvanic Corrosion
Pitting (including scratch techniques, metastable pitting, and critical pitting temperature)
Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
Deaeration
Electrochemical Frequency Modulation
For up-to-date information about this year's course, visit the course website.