Melvin Romanoff

Last updated

Melvin Romanoff was a physical chemist and corrosion engineer who specialized and wrote books about underground and soil corrosion. He worked for many years at the National Bureau of standards. [1] [2] [3] [4] His tenure at The National Bureau of Standards later renamed the National Institute of Standards and Technology was from 1937 to 1970. He was inducted into the hall of fame in 1995. [5] For many years, NACE, the National Association of Corrosion Engineers, now NACE International presented a Melvin Romanoff award in his honor.

Contents

Work at the National Bureau of Standards

The Underground Corrosion of Steel Piling was originally written as a collection of papers as Monograph 58, for the National Bureau of standards. [6] One of the two authors was Melvin Romanoff. After his death in October 1970 it was superseded by Monograph 158 and dedicated in his honor. It was published March 1972. [7] The citation honoring him in this publication is in the form of a eulogy and reads in part "he was the guiding light and motivating force for research at the National Bureau of Standards on underground corrosion. His work is considered by corrosion engineers throughout the world to be indispensable for an understanding of the corrosion behavior of metals in soils. The studies described in the monograph embody pioneering concepts on the nature of driven piling corrosion developed by Mr. Romanoff toward the end of his career. Therefore this publication, which is a compilation of the papers resulting from those concepts, serves as a fitting memorial for Melvin Romanoff." He died October 1970. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical science laboratory programs that include nanoscale science and technology, engineering, information technology, neutron research, material measurement, and physical measurement. From 1901 to 1988, the agency was named the National Bureau of Standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathodic protection</span> Corrosion prevention technique

Cathodic protection is a technique used to control the corrosion of a metal surface by making it the cathode of an electrochemical cell. A simple method of protection connects the metal to be protected to a more easily corroded "sacrificial metal" to act as the anode. The sacrificial metal then corrodes instead of the protected metal. For structures such as long pipelines, where passive galvanic cathodic protection is not adequate, an external DC electrical power source is used to provide sufficient current.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James S. Albus</span>

James Sacra Albus was an American engineer, Senior NIST Fellow and founder and former chief of the Intelligent Systems Division of the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacob Rabinow</span>

Jacob Rabinow was an engineer and inventor. He earned a total of 229 U.S. patents on a variety of mechanical, optical and electrical devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SEAC (computer)</span> First-generation electronic computer built in 1950

SEAC was a first-generation electronic computer, built in 1950 by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and was initially called the National Bureau of Standards Interim Computer, because it was a small-scale computer designed to be built quickly and put into operation while the NBS waited for more powerful computers to be completed. The team that developed SEAC was organized by Samuel N. Alexander. SEAC was demonstrated in April 1950 and was dedicated in June 1950; it is claimed to be the first fully operational stored-program electronic computer in the US.

Marcel Pourbaix was a Belgian chemist and pianist. He performed his most well known research at the University of Brussels, studying corrosion. His biggest achievement is the derivation of potential-pH, better known as “Pourbaix Diagrams”. Pourbaix Diagrams are thermodynamic charts constructed using the Nernst equation and visualize the relationship between possible phases of a system, bounded by lines representing the reactions that transport between them. They can be read much like a phase diagram.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyman James Briggs</span> American physicist and engineer (1874–1963)

Lyman James Briggs was an American engineer, physicist and administrator. He was a director of the National Bureau of Standards during the Great Depression and chairman of the Uranium Committee before America entered the Second World War. The Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University is named in his honor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar Buckingham</span> American physicist

Edgar Buckingham was an American physicist.

Michael A. Streicher was an American metallurgist and engineer who became internationally recognized for his work on the testing and development of corrosion-resistant stainless steel alloys. He published widely in technical journals and textbooks and received numerous patents for his inventions.

Corrosion engineering is an engineering specialty that applies scientific, technical, engineering skills, and knowledge of natural laws and physical resources to design and implement materials, structures, devices, systems, and procedures to manage corrosion. From a holistic perspective, corrosion is the phenomenon of metals returning to the state they are found in nature. The driving force that causes metals to corrode is a consequence of their temporary existence in metallic form. To produce metals starting from naturally occurring minerals and ores, it is necessary to provide a certain amount of energy, e.g. Iron ore in a blast furnace. It is therefore thermodynamically inevitable that these metals when exposed to various environments would revert to their state found in nature. Corrosion and corrosion engineering thus involves a study of chemical kinetics, thermodynamics, electrochemistry and materials science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ductile iron pipe</span> Pipe made of ductile cast iron

Ductile iron pipe is pipe made of ductile cast iron commonly used for potable water transmission and distribution. This type of pipe is a direct development of earlier cast iron pipe, which it has superseded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Screw piles</span> Construction component used for foundations

Screw piles, sometimes referred to as screw-piles, screw piers, screw anchors, screw foundations, ground screws, helical piles, helical piers, or helical anchors are a steel screw-in piling and ground anchoring system used for building deep foundations. Screw piles are typically manufactured from high-strength steel using varying sizes of tubular hollow sections for the pile or anchors shaft.

A sacrificial metal is a metal used as a sacrificial anode in cathodic protection that corrodes to prevent a primary metal from corrosion or rusting. It may also be used for galvanization.

DCVG is a survey technique used for assessing the effectiveness of corrosion protection on buried steel structures. In particular, oil and natural gas pipelines are routinely monitored using this technique to help locate coating faults and highlight deficiencies in their cathodic protection (CP) strategies.

Herbert Henry Uhlig was an American physical chemist who studied corrosion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Clyde Martin Jr.</span>

William Clyde Martin Jr. was an American physicist. After receiving his Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 1956, he joined the staff of the National Bureau of Standards, where he was employed until his retirement in 1998. As Chief of the NBS Atomic Spectroscopy Section from 1962 to 1998, he led the development of its reference data resources on the spectra of rare-earth elements, substantially increased its coverage of highly excited and ionized species, and pioneered the publication of NIST Standard Reference Data on the internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharine Blodgett Gebbie</span> American astrophysicist

Katharine Blodgett Gebbie was an American astrophysicist and civil servant. She was the founding Director of the Physical Measurement Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and of its two immediate predecessors, the Physics Laboratory and the Center for Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, both for which she was the only Director. During her 22 years of management of these institutions, four of its scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 2015, the NIST Katharine Blodgett Gebbie Laboratory Building in Boulder, Colorado was named in her honor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Ambler</span> British-American physicist

Ernest Ambler was a British-American physicist who served as the Acting Under Secretary for Technology in the Department of Commerce (1988–89), as director of the United States' National Bureau of Standards, and as the first director of the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology 1988–89.

Morris Cohen was a Canadian chemist working for the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa. He contributed to the sciences of corrosion and of oxidation of metals.

Mars Guy Fontana was a corrosion engineer, professor of Metallurgical Engineering at Ohio State University. He was born April 6, 1910, in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and died February 29, 1988.

References

  1. Romanoff, Melvin (1964). "Exterior Corrosion of Cast-Iron Pipe". Journal AWWA. 56 (9): 1129–1143. doi:10.1002/j.1551-8833.1964.tb01314.x. ISSN   1551-8833.
  2. Schwerdtfeger, W J; Romanoff, Melvin (1972). "NBS papers on underground corrosion of steel piling 1962-1971". Gaithersburg, MD. doi: 10.6028/nbs.mono.127 .{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. Romanoff, Melvin. Underground Corrosion.
  4. OFFICIAL EXHIBIT - ENT000391-00-BD01 - M. Romanoff, Underground Corrosion, National Bureau of Standards Circular (1957). (nrc.gov)
  5. "NIST Hall of Fame" (PDF).
  6. Romanoff, M., & United States. (1957). Underground corrosion. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office.
  7. "NBS PAPERS ON UNDERGROUND CORROSION OF STEEL PILING 1962-1971". trid.trb.org. Retrieved 2021-07-24.
  8. "NBS Papers on Underground Corrosion of Steel Piling" (PDF). NIST.gov. p. 4. LCCN   72-600037.