It's not so bad actually. I am only in the materials department because my area (water) had two people in it: my boss, a water treatment research engineer, and the VP of development, who also happened to be the director of the materials group. I've been here a year and a half now and while I didn't remember much from that freshman materials course five years ago, most of the memories have resurfaced.
One of the projects I'm working on now is a new coating. I'm running a life test on the coating current and today was my weekly day to check the panels to see how they're doing. One panel looked funny but not in a discernible manner. The only real "test" I've been doing with these panels is cutting them open once they fail. Since that wasn't an option for this panel (it hasn't failed yet!) I needed a different test to try.
But what? The extent of my tests to now has consisted of weight loss/gain, blister, and potentiostat. None of which were suitable for what I needed. Then I remembered something one of my co-workers had suggested for a different coating: AC Impedance. Unfortunately all I remembered was that the equipment to run the test is in the lab and that it's used for some coatings. I needed more information.
When professors would retire at my alma mater they would leave behind any old text books they no longer desired and students could pick and chose if they wanted any. When a professor from my department retired last year I managed to snag the book Corrosion Engineering
by Fontana. This was the book I turned to today to get an idea of what the AC Impedance test entailed. Unfortunately, Corrosion Engineering only talked about the theory behind AC Impedance, I wanted more.
by Fontana. This was the book I turned to today to get an idea of what the AC Impedance test entailed. Unfortunately, Corrosion Engineering only talked about the theory behind AC Impedance, I wanted more. The next book I turned to was one from my work's library called Electrochemical Techniques for Corrosion Engineering
by Baboian. This book gave me more details into AC Impedance evaluation for coatings with a lot more graphs and figures than Corrosion Engineering did. More importantly, from this book I learned that I could take this technology and apply it to a different project to get more insight into a filmed electrode.
by Baboian. This book gave me more details into AC Impedance evaluation for coatings with a lot more graphs and figures than Corrosion Engineering did. More importantly, from this book I learned that I could take this technology and apply it to a different project to get more insight into a filmed electrode. I didn't end up trying an AC Impedance test today, I already had my plate full with linear polarization and tafel plots anyway but it would have been fun to work my way through a different test. I put the funny looking coating back on test and moved on to another project. There will always be more days, I'll just have to wait until a less busy one.
Way to utilize your resources. You know, when I read the last paragraph, I thought you had your plate full with flafel. That would have been tastier, but not necessarily better.
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This is why my husband has all of his engr books from college and STILL refers to them.
ReplyDelete@Julie: Flafel would have been much, much tastier!
ReplyDelete@Julia: I sold most of my book but I have been going back and buying them. Sell when they're still using that edition in school and buy them once the editions changed.