Duplex Conference in Venice does not reflect potential

摘要

About 280 delegates from all over the world attended the 6th Duplex Conference and Expo in Venice from 18-20 October, organised by the Italian Metallurgical Association (AIM) The conference programme offered 80 paper presentations and one workshop for fabricators, which was sponsored and organised by the International Molybdenum Association (IMOA). A small technical Exhibition with 13 exhibiting companies was held in parallel with the conference. Since the first duplex conference in St Louis in 1982 follow-up conferences have been organised in the Hague, Beaune, Glasgow and Maastricht. The honour to host the 6th Duplex Conference fell to Venice but in spite of the very attractive location this event did not attract a record number of delegates compared with previous conferences. It is fair to state that the organisers succeeded in establishing another platform where old and new friends from the duplex stainless-steel community could meet. However, most of the paper presentations came from the international university community and had a strong emphasis on recent scientific developments. As a result the end-user and engineering industries were poorly represented. Nevertheless Stainless Steel World succeeded in catching up with Mr Lorganaden, who works as Metallurgist at the Development Projects Department at Esso Production Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and was kind enough to share some of his duplex experiences. He said that Esso Production Malaysia has been using duplex for more than 10 years, mainly in typical offshore applications such as flowlines for gas production, seawater and firewater piping, pumps and valves. According to Mr Lorganadan welding is not regarded as a problem. "Welding procedures we do ourselves and it is no problem to meet the requirements in terms of mechanical and corrosion problems. Our main concern is the procurement of finished products.