The ravages of time and its influence on metals

Marc van Woensel, Cohesys, speaks during the digital edition of the PLOT Conference on November 24 about the influence of time on metals. We asked him about the approach of his webinar.

By: Dimitri Reijerman

Van Woensel is mainly active as a consultant in metallurgic production technology. He explains how the market in which he works developed: “Over the past thirty years, we have worked on a very nice manufacturing industry in the Netherlands with a high degree of specialization. But my experience is that on many points the substantiation of all the acquired knowledge can be meager. People know quite a lot about their own processes, but as soon as something goes wrong, there is a lack of back-up knowledge about underlying matters. When I come and have a look, I can often put my finger on the sore spot within a day or a few hours.”

Most of Van Woensel's jobs come from the manufacturing industry and high-quality engineering firms. His specialism is leading in this: "In the perception of most people, metal is a beautiful shiny object that does not change over time. The reality is that if you look at them closely, metals are very lively things. You can use these properties, but you can also suffer from them. Things go wrong because metals deteriorate in properties or show different properties than you are used to."

In practice, Van Woensel also encounters remarkable things. Such as the moment when he went to look at a leaking heat treatment oven. "These ovens work with liquid salt at about five hundred degrees," he says. "There was a leak. Perhaps the wrong type of metal was used in the construction. This oven had a capacity of 400 tons and there was already water in an underlying pit. There was a risk that the leak would get worse and an enormous amount of steam would be created. Extremely dangerous." The company decided to permanently shut down the oven and replace it.

The metal expert also visited a salmon farm where there were corrosion problems. Overflowing seawater from the basins caused corrosion to pipes, including pipes with 6 atmospheres of oxygen. In the event of a leak in the oxygen supply, the risk of a major fire was very real.

Despite the dangers, things usually go well. And refinements are still being made in metal research. “That’s because today’s most modern technology is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” says Van Woensel. “I have customers who make constructions that are extremely thin-walled and heavily loaded. For example, you’re talking about heat exchangers where thin-walled plates come into contact with aggressive media. So you’re running up against the limits of materials and you see that you have to pull out all the stops to make something like that possible.”

Want to learn more about the effects of time on metals? Register for free for the PLOT conference on November 24.