Annual Report 2008

1. Board membership

It was with great sadness that the Board heard of the death of Professor Tom Bell in April. We plan to have an award or annual lecture to commemorate Tom’s memory.

The membership of the Board is changing to meet the demands of the new Divisional strategy and currently stands at 23:

• Chairman: Keith Harrison, Independent
• Secretary: Dr Mark Gee, National Physical Laboratory
• Professor Bob Akid, Sheffield Hallam University 
• Dr Bryan Allcock, Monitor Coatings Ltd
• Dr Ken Brummitt, De Puy International
• Professor Bill Clyne, Cambridge University
• Dr Gary Critchlow, Loughborough University
• David Elliott, Surface Engineering Association
• Anne Farrow, EPSRC
• Barry Gay, Institute of Metal Finishing
• Dr David Gooch, Independent
• Professor Patrick Grant, Oxford University
• Steve Harmer, IOM3
• Professor Sam Harris, Nottingham University
• David Harvey, TWI
• Mark Hull, Maney Publishing
• Professor Ian Hutchings, Cambridge University
• Dr Neil Morgan, Technology Strategy Board
• Professor John Nicholls, Cranfield University
• Len Pinder, E-ON Technology
• Dr David Rickerby, Rolls-Royce
• Professor Robert Wood, Southampton University
• Bob Wood, IFHTSE

2. Board meetings

The last board meeting was held on 26th February at 1 CHT with an attendance of 12 but there have been three Divisional Strategy Forums since then:

• 5th June 2008 at Oxford University Begbroke site with 22 attendees
• 8th October 2008 at Ceram Stoke-on-Trent with 16 attendees
• 8th January 2009 (re-arranged from December 2008) at Cranfield University with 15 attendees

Surface Engineering Committee meetings

• 16th January 2008, 9 attendees
• 25th June 2008, 9 attendees
• 29th October 2009, 10 attendees

Society of Adhesion and Adhesives meetings

• January 2008
• May 2008
• October 2008

3. Opportunities for growth/constraints

Discussions have taken place and are still continuing between IOM3, the Institute of Engineering and Technology and the distinguished tribologist Dr Peter Jost. It is proposed to set up a UK Tribology Society as a constituent of the Surface Engineering Division in line with the corporate plan and Institute’s membership whilst serving the community. It is intended that this will be a self sustained organisation having its own membership with an opportunity of growth and bringing interested parties together. It is proposed that the new society will work closely with the tribology groups of both the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Physics.

The future strategy of the Division has been debated at the three Strategy Forums which were open to all members of the Board and its constituent committees and society. At the final Strategy Forum a number of proposals were tabled which will form the basis of the new Divisional Strategy once they are agreed by the Division members. These proposals are based around: delivery of the strategy and associated objectives through an interactive web based platform – the “Surface Engineering Hub”; the most appropriate structure for the Division; the roles and responsibilities of the board and constituent committees/society members. The proposals take into consideration education and training; communication with other institutes; standardisation and accreditation as well as populating the “Hub” with articles and narrative.

The SED Board has set a number of milestones for implementing the strategy in 2009:

• Finalise the Surface Engineering Hub technology
• Finalise the Board members roles & responsibilities
• Implementation of the Divisional structure
• Implement governance of the strategy
• Complete SWOT analysis on implementation of the web based platform

4. Technical programme

The technical programme for the Division is organised thorough the constituent committees and society.

The main event organised by the Division and the Surface Engineering Committee was the two day Surface Engineering Symposium at Congress. The symposium consisted of the successful “Young Researchers’ Lecture Competition” flanked by two interactive problem solving workshops involving two industrial wear problems - one for a gas turbine application and the other for a biomedical application. As with attendance generally at Congress we were disappointed with the number of delegates to the symposium (approx. 18 for each session). However, we were very pleased the way the workshop sessions were received by the delegates and we plan to use the format for future events. The standard of the Young Researchers’ presentations was again very high and again there was a substantial prize for the winner.

Surface Engineering Committee

During 2008 the main focus of the SEC has been to support the SED in the development of the future strategy of the surface engineering community. The material presented in the September edition of  Materials World introduced the concept of the surface engineering hub which will form a major part of the communication and integration strategy as the SED develops the education and training and standardisation strands outlined in section 3 of this report. The Surface engineering hub has also been linked to the workshops launched under Congress 2008 that introduced the theme of robust design and this activity will be further developed in 2009 and supported by further articles planned for Materials World. The SEC was also involved in supporting the Euromat 2009 international conference and the meeting on Gas Turbines – High temperature coatings and life extension scheduled for 9-10th December in London.

Corrosion Committee

Several successful meetings have been organised by the Corrosion Committee. Dr Paul McIntyre organised a one-day event on Corrosion in Power Plants. This was a very successful meeting, but suffered from the meeting room being too small the numbers that attended. As with this type of event people can register on the day which makes forecasting numbers very difficult.

The Corrosion Committee was also involved in supporting the EuroCorr 2008 International Conference. This was hugely successful being the most attended EuroCorr event ever. Over 800 delegates attended the event. Several Committee members were involved at the local level and Professor Stuart Lyons was Chair of the local organising group. A share of the profits from this event will be received by IOM3.
The next event is to be held in 2009 at the HSE in Buxton. This type of meeting has been popular in the past and the meeting is expected to make a profit. The lead organiser is Dr Stefan Winnik (Exxon/Mobile).

Society of Adhesion and Adhesives

As usual the Society held two one-day technical meetings, organised solely by the SAA:

1. A meeting on “Nano and Bio Inspired Adhesion”, which technically was very good in a novel subject area for the SAA.
2. A meeting on “Additives for Adhesives” (jointly with BASA). This was a technically interesting but with small attendance.

The Society’s main event was the three-day triennial conference EURADH 2008/Adhesion08 held on Oxford with support from IOM3.The event had over 140 registrations, well above the break-even figure in the agreed budget. Details of the outturn have not yet been received from the Conference Department, but expect it to be substantial and positive. Technically, the meeting was very successful with a lot of interesting and new papers.

The SAA plans to hold two meetings in 2009. The first one in April is to be on Adhesion. The second is planned for December, but no subject has been chosen.

The SAA is starting to plan for their next triennial meeting, anticipated for September 2011. But before this meeting though the Society expects to contribute to WCARP 4 in France in 2010 and IUPAC World Congress in Glasgow, also in 2010.

5. Foresight chart developments

The Surface Engineering Foresight document is being reviewed by Professor John Nicholls, board member and former Chairman of the Surface Engineering Committee when the document was produced.

6. Professional membership developments

All members of the Board and constituent committees are encouraged to become professional members of the Institute and to encourage their colleagues and contacts to become members. A number of  board members became Fellows of the Institute in 2008.

The Division is to run a Surface Engineering event with the East Midlands Materials Society in late 2009 or early 2010.

7. Institute Federalisation

The Division already operates its own form of federalisation, with the Corrosion Committee and the Society of Adhesion and Adhesives being autonomous bodies affiliated to the Division, The Surface Engineering Committee is the technical committee for the Division.

The Division has discussed converting to a Society on a number of occasions in the past and has always voted unanimously to remain as a Division. The most recent time was at the 2nd Strategy Forum in October 2008.

The following comments are the current views of the Division constituents:

Surface Engineering Committee – currently considering a name change to avoid confusion with the Surface Engineering Division Board. Possible names are Surface Technologies Committee or Coatings and Treatments Committee.

Corrosion Committee – “The Committee has discussed the implications of operating under the umbrella of the SED. Whilst it currently has no strong views on becoming a ‘Corrosion Society’ it wishes to remain an autonomous body with a clear identity within the Institute. It is more than happy to collaborate on activities of mutual interest with other bodies within the Institute”.

Society of Adhesion and Adhesives – “We are pioneers in having Society status. We chose this route as we felt that we needed a clear society image for recognition in comparison with our international counterparts such as the Adhesion Society in the USA and identification of our position as the voice for adhesion science in the UK. We regularly work with these overseas organisations and the name gives us greater credibility. We also work with BASA, the trade organisation for adhesives manufacturers. We hold two sorts of meeting, big conferences, triennially, which are organised by IOM3 Communications., but also regular one-day meetings which we organise entirely ourselves, though we are grateful for publicity by IOM3 in Materials World (when we get it!)”.

8. National and international linkages with other Societies /Institutes

The Division has strong linkages with the following organisations:

• The Institute of Mechanical Engineers
• The Institute of Physics
• The Royal Society of Chemistry
• The Institute of Engineering and Technology
• The Institute of Corrosion
• The Institute of Metal Finishing
• International Federation of Heat Treatment and Surface Engineering
• Surface Engineering Association
• Thermal Spraying and Surface Engineering Association
• NAMTEC
• National Physical Laboratory
• Paint Research Association
• The ASM Thermal Spray Society

9. Government Interfaces

The Division Board has representation from EPSRC and the Technology Strategy Board. The Division maintains contact with Government via the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network and Materials UK.

10. Publications

The Division website is currently being updated in line with the new Institute website guidelines. Dr Paul Morrell of Rolls-Royce has been trained as the web manager for the Division website. Representatives from each of the constituent committees and society will be trained to add content to the site.

The theme of the September 2008 edition of Materials World was surface engineering and the Division contributed three major articles to this edition. A further themed edition of Materials World is planned for September 2009.

11. Awards/prizes

The Division plans to raise funds for a Surface Engineering Medal which hopefully will be available for the 2010 awards programme.

12. Other matters

None

13. Appendix A - Technical Programme

The technical programme is appended to the word version of the Surface Engineering Division Board report available for down-load.