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ADVANCES IN EDUCATION

IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO APPLIED SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION BY SHIPILOV

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  • In 1993, Shipilov developed the first known full course on physicochemical mechanics of fracture (a.k.a. fracture chemomechanics), in which the main point of investigation is the environment-induced cracking (including stress corrosion cracking, corrosion fatigue, hydrogen embrittlement, liquid metal embrittlement, and creep-fatigue-environment interaction) of structural materials. The relevance of the course to engineering education is evidenced in the publication of its contents in Teaching and Education in Fracture and Fatigue, edited by H.P. Rossmanith, E&FN Spon, London, 1996. At the invitation of Yuri D. Tretyakov, Dean of the Faculty of Materials Science of Moscow State University, he taught the course to final-year undergraduate and first-year graduate students from 1995 to 1998 and again as visiting professor in 2003.

    • ​Note: Shipilov also was invited to teach the course at Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russia’s most prestigious engineering school, by Boris A. Prusakov, then Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Bauman University.

  • Initiated, in 2003, worldwide discussions on the importance of corrosion education at the university level and the need for engineering departments to incorporate courses on corrosion and its control into all engineering curricula. In addition, he organized and chaired the Symposium on Corrosion Education and Training at the 16th International Corrosion Congress in 2005. It was the first and still only (as of May of 2023) sizeable international gathering of corrosion educators to date; this was a defining moment in the public acknowledgment of the need to immediately address the lack of training of university students in the field of corrosion. More than 40 educators from 14 countries presented at the Symposium. His presentation on the subject at the MS&T’2006 Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, was acknowledged by the editor of JOM [Journal of Materials] in the December 2006 issue of the journal. The importance of his initiative was further recognized when the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academies arranged the Materials Forum on Corrosion Education for the 21st Century in Washington in March 2007, with the goal being to “address the capability of U.S. engineering curricula to educate undergraduate students in corrosion identification and abatement.”

    • Note: The initiative proposed by Shipilov at the 16th International Corrosion Congress in his keynote lecture, “University Education in Corrosion: A True Challenge for the Engineering World,” was widely acknowledged as the only (realistic) approach allowing to prepare of the workforce that could be ably decreasing (at least by 30%) the cost of corrosion, estimated to be $2.5 trillion globally.

    • Fewer educators (and only from U.S. universities) participated at the Forum organized by the U.S. National Academies than at the
      Symposium organized by Shipilov. The Forum did not add much to Shipilov’s ideas.

    • Unlike Shipilov—who successfully created a Canadian Corrosion Education Council and launched two programs that “enhanced the reputation of NACE [National Association of Corrosion Engineers] International in secondary and post-secondary applied science and engineering education” and being acknowledged internationally were discussed in the interview “2015 R.A. Brannon Award Recipient–An Interview with Sergei Shipilov,” which was published in Materials Performance, the flagship publication of NACE International and the world’s most prominent circulation journal dedicated exclusively to corrosion prevention and control—the National Academies were not able to help the nation to deal with corrosion that costs the U.S. economy a staggering $451.3 billion per year.​​

ottawa 2003 1.bmp

Dr. David Shoesmith, NACE President Pierre Crevolin, Dr. Sergei Shipilov, and Dr. Winston Revie, members of the Corrosion Educators Forum panel at the NACE Northern Area Eastern Conference, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, September 15-17, 2003. Source: D.T. Perrigo, "Association News: NACE Area & Section
News" Materials Performance, 42 (11), 2003, 84.

  • Initiated, in 2003, a partnership between ASM [American Society for Metals] International and NACE International in organizing joint ASM/NACE Materials Camps for Teachers at the Societies’ level. Founded the local Steering Committee that organized the first (5-day) ASM/NACE Materials Camp in Calgary in 2006 when he chaired the ASM Calgary Chapter. This camp was also the first-ever Materials Camp in Western Canada. It was followed by other successful camps in Calgary and Ottawa that allowed 400+ teachers from Canada and the United States (by 2019) to learn new ways to make teaching math and core science principles more exciting and accessible to students. In addition, the camp program resulted in the incorporation of the NACE Foundation of Canada to inspire students and educators to engage in the field of materials and corrosion science and engineering. In 2015, he was honored with the R.A. Brannon Award of NACE International for the initiative that “enhanced the reputation of NACE International in secondary applied science and engineering education.”

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  • Proposed, in 2004, for NACE International to allow for the training of corrosion specialists through a certificate program linked to colleges and universities. The proposal established a NACE Collegiate Student Certificate Program, designed to recognize students who completed a course of study in corrosion as part of the regular curriculum at a college or university. The Program has since created a training infrastructure that helps to meet the need for more university-educated corrosion professionals in industries worldwide. In 2015, he was honored with the R.A. Brannon Award of NACE International for the initiative that “enhanced the reputation of NACE International in post-secondary applied science and engineering education.”

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  • Inaugurated, in 2004, the Canadian Corrosion Education Council that comprises 13 members of faculty from 11 universities in Canada who have made significant contributions to corrosion education and research, both nationally and internationally. The Council’s mandate is to focus the attention of educators and experts on the lack of appropriate channels and means of providing education in corrosion. The Council also encourages university-industry-government interaction and serves as an agency for collecting and distributing data relating to the academic aspects of corrosion studies.

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  • Developed, in early 2016, a curriculum for the first-of-its-kind master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering with Concentration in Corrosion Engineering to be offered by the Tickle College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee (UT) Knoxville to meet the requirements of all military services, improve education standards, and better prepare military engineering personnel involved in the prevention, control, mitigation, and management of corrosion and environmental effects on military assets on a daily basis. The program takes advantage of the academic, research, and industrial knowledge base at UT-ORNL to produce high-quality military engineers with an in-depth knowledge of the science and technology of corrosion and corrosion control. The curriculum places heavy emphasis on laboratory instruction to enhance students’ ability to deploy classroom knowledge and corrosion theory in real-world situations specific to each military service.

    • Note: The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Corrosion Policy and Oversight within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, which was created with a goal “to reduce the total lifecycle costs of corrosion, increase availability and improve safety within the DoD,” defined the master’s program—along with establishing the Defense Institute for the Science and Technology of Corrosion (DISC) of which the concept also was developed Shipilov—as “the only way to visibly decrease the cost of corrosion” (D.J. Dunmire, 2017). The DISC intended to help DoD prevent and mitigate the corrosion of the military equipment and infrastructure, which costs the U.S. Armed Forces some $23 billion a year—10% of the annual military budget of China ($230 billion), the world’s second-largest military spender after the United States—and is “potentially the number one cost driver in life-cycle costs” in all military services. It is worth noting that five years after launching the two programs (as planned) in 2016, the DoD should be able to save at least $7 billion per year, which was equal to the annual budget for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science in 2021. Despite all good intentions, the program stuck as soon as Shipilov left the United States for Canada. According to Dunmire, no other expert in materials degradation and corrosion—qualified enough to take the following steps and lead the master’s program and DISC—was identified in the nation, even after the most challenging tasks of the two initiatives were completed by Shipilov. As seven years have passed since 2016, the cost impact of corrosion continues to rise. In the last seven years, the DoD lost to the consequences of corrosion not less than $140 billion, if not over $250 billion indeed—what would be more realistic. The $140 billion is a massive diversion of public resources, of which one-third (or at least $7 billion in 2021 and over $7 billion in 2022) could be saved by implementing the two programs.

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