Isn't this like corrosion engineers validating their own industry? I mean it's a fair talking point but also like asking VCs how good their returns are?
The Global Cost of Corrosion
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Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#32The environmentalists killed a zinc mine in my state due to pollution concerns. Of course every pound of zinc not mined meant more steel without zinc protection, and hence more rust and more mining of iron ore. Arguments like this were completely lost on them.
So you mean that the mine should be allowed to pollute so long as the pollution is offset elsewhere?
Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#33The environmentalists killed a zinc mine in my state due to pollution concerns. Of course every pound of zinc not mined meant more steel without zinc protection, and hence more rust and more mining of iron ore. Arguments like this were completely lost on them.
Or just mine the zinc elsewhere?!
Eventually we'll run out of elsewhere.
Like pushing our pollution into the developing world is both immoral and harmful to our economy.
Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#34Isn't this like corrosion engineers validating their own industry? I mean it's a fair talking point but also like asking VCs how good their returns are?
Reminds me of the perennial reports from the American Society of Civil Engineers talking about how the US's infrastructure is degraded and everyone had better hire a lot of civil engineers to fix it.
Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#35Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#36This is an important issue. People keep talking about recycling, but much more important than recycling is just being able to use a thing for longer before you are even thinking about recycling it. Japanese automakers did the world a great favor when in the 80s and 90s they made much longer lasting cars and made longevity and resale value an important consideration in the purchasing decision. They did this mostly by…
Volvo led the way in this long before Japan got even close to figuring this out. That's why you still see ancient Volvo's drive around in numbers that are just way higher than any other brand.
I got the impression Volvo was able to do this for fairly small production runs, whereas the Japanese figured out how to consistently do it in large volumes.
Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#37The environmentalists killed a zinc mine in my state due to pollution concerns. Of course every pound of zinc not mined meant more steel without zinc protection, and hence more rust and more mining of iron ore. Arguments like this were completely lost on them.
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Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#38This is why I get scared when I see articles about people developing plastic eating bacteria. Sure it is great for reducing waste but it’s a dangerous game to be playing for sure.
Those microbes require very specific conditions: precise pH and osmolarity, high temperature (50-70˚C), long contact times, feedstock that's been literally pulverized, etc. These probably aren't going to occur anywhere outside of a bioreactor, so our action figures are likely safe...for now!
FYI, you used an incorrect character for the degree sign.
Should be ° U+00B0 DEGREE SIGN, not ˚ U+02DA RING ABOVE.
Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Volvo led the way in this long before Japan got even close to figuring this out. That's why you still see ancient Volvo's drive around in numbers that are just way higher than any other brand.
Are modern Volvos still better than average for corrosion resistance?
Somewhere in the late 90's early 2000's car manufacturers switched paint processes, typically to a water based paint.
That's the point in time where you could see the most clearly which manufacturers had their house in order in terms of weld cleaning, seam coating, basic material procurement and surface protection.
Some of them failed horribly, which led to some brands (for instance: Mercedes) having an undisclosed hit against their earnings to deal with the resulting rust issues on relatively new cars. It wasn't rare at all to see an early 2000's C-Class in the shop for the replacement of four doors, bonnet and rear hatch. And it wasn't rare to see them completely rusted out either a few years later. From Q1 2003 they galvanized those panels and then the problem stopped.
So everybody smartened up and now things are much better, to the point that there hardly are cars made that have serious rust issues. Coatings are a continuous materials science development front and some of the stuff that happened in the last decade and a half is extremely impressive.
Car bodies used to be gone long before the engines, those days are over.
VAG, Volvo, Mercedes, BMW all have a very good reputation nowadays for being rust resistant, I would not know of a favorite between those. By the way, Volvo is now Chinese (bought by scooter manufacturer Geely).
My own car is a 1997 (just before they switched paint formulation for that particular brand) and there isn't a spot of rust on it and as far as I know it has never had body work done. (Don't get me started about engines though...)
Re: The Global Cost of Corrosion
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have heard the same. Actually making rusting proof stuff is very hard. Specially if there is any chance of things like acids being involved. Coatings could help, but even then why not just paint regular steel. Now other thing I wonder is how structurally sound some of the stainless alloys are? Do they have similar characteristics to steels now used?
IIRC, Coated rebar can actually fail faster or in less predictable and therefore worse ways. The coating is often damaged during install, but even perfectly coated bar forms cracks eventually. The entire system's galvanic potential is focused on these small exposed areas, causing extremely fast rusting. The coating tends to fail in higher stress areas, which means that not only does the bar fail, it fails in the wors…
Fiberglass rebar is the future: high strength and won’t rust.
You can also add glass fiber to cement to increase strength but it’s not nearly as strong as rebar.