Advances in Corrosion Science for Lifetime Prediction and Sustainability:
A Celebration of the 100th Birthday of Mars Fontana
Mars G. Fontana
Mars G. Fontana was born on April 6, 1910. He became professor and then chairman of the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at The Ohio State University. Fontana can be considered the Father of Corrosion Engineering, as he was very involved in applying the corrosion fundamentals being developed at the time for solving real industrial applications. He was also a renowned educator. He taught a very popular course on corrosion and authored a textbook on the subject that was used worldwide for decades. One of his students, Roger Staehle, took over the corrosion lab in the sixties and developed a world-leading center for the study of corrosion, which he named the Fontana Corrosion Center. As a result of the efforts of Fontana, Staehle, and their successors, the Fontana Corrosion Center maintains an internationally leading position in corrosion research.
The centennial of Fontana's birth in 2010 provides an opportunity to celebrate his achievements and to convene a meeting focused on Fontana's specialty, application of corrosion fundamentals to solving real problems. In today's world, lifetime prediction and sustainability dominate corrosion engineering design.
