ACA offers new courses in corrosion prevention

Throughout the year, the Australasian Corrosion Association (ACA) presents a range of technical seminars and training courses designed to provide attendees with information and guidance about ways to combat and manage corrosion. These training courses are applicable to a variety of industries and cover the fundamentals of corrosion control through to more advanced techniques and procedures. Participants will have the knowledge and tools to offer the most effective solutions — extending the service life of equipment and maximising the use of a facility — to asset owners and managers.

In 2016, the ACA has introduced new courses and also expanded the locations at which they are conducted. One new course available is the Hot Dip Galvanizing Inspector, which will be held in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Auckland. The ACA’s traditional Level 1 and 2 NACE Coating Inspection Program (CIP) course is also being offered in Thailand for the first time.

In conjunction with the Australasian Concrete Repair Association (ACRA), the ACA will be running Corrosion in Concrete Structures training in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. This course provides a solid foundation of knowledge about the corrosion of both reinforcement materials and concrete.

The ACA’s Coatings Selection and Specification course has recently been updated and will be conducted in Melbourne and Sydney in this year. Among many other skills, participants will learn how to select and specify appropriate protective paint coatings for steel, determine the corrosivity of an atmospheric environment, identify the design and fabrication features of steel structures which influence coating durability and differentiate maintenance painting from that for new structures.

The SSPC Concrete Coatings Inspection course will be run in Perth and Sydney. The training has been developed in association with the US Society for Protective Surfaces (SSPC) in order to train individuals in the proper methods of inspecting surface preparation and installation of protective coatings on concrete structures and facilities.

The new Hot Dip Galvanizing Inspector course has been designed to train individuals to assess whether a fabricated steel article is suitable for the hot dip galvanizing process and to correctly inspect galvanized structures to ensure regulatory compliance. The content has been designed to give graduates the equivalent level of training as corrosion inspectors and has been developed in conjunction with the Galvanizers Association of Australia (GAA). “Galvanizing inspectors must learn the questions they need to ask to check if a process is compliant,” said Peter Golding, the GAA’s CEO. “These must cover the three parts of the galvanizing process of a structure — before, during and after — that an inspector sees.”

Amongst other topics, the course covers local and international hot dip galvanizing standards, design considerations for inspection before galvanizing, and the metallurgy of the hot dip galvanized coating including the effect of steel chemistry and surface conditions.

The NACE CIP is the world’s most recognised and specified coating inspection certification program. The program trains coating professionals to properly inspect and certify the surface preparation and application of a protective coating system on a variety of structures in any industry.

Conducted in partnership with NACE International, the Level 1 course covers the basic technology of coating application and inspection during 60 hours of personal instruction, providing both the technical and practical fundamentals for coating inspection work on structural steel projects. The Level 2 course focuses on advanced inspection techniques and specialised application and in-depth coverage of surface preparation, coating types, inspection criteria and failure modes.

In addition to these courses, in mid-2016 — for the first time in Australia — the ACA will be hosting the NACE Cathodic Protection Program 1–4 series.

Places are still available for all the courses and full details can be found at the ACA website: www.corrosion.com.au/training.