Mission and Vision

Erosion/corrosion problems are inherently complex. If one company attempted to solve these problems, the time and cost required would be prohibitive.  The distribution of costs among many companies was a primary motivating factor for establishing the University of Tulsa Erosion/Corrosion Research Center as a cooperative program. As a cooperative program currently with currently 16 member companies, and side projects conducted by E/CRC personnel, each member company receives results for a fraction of the total research cost (less than about 5% of the cost) because research costs are shared by many companies and also by university sponsored fellowships and Teaching Assistantships received by some of our students. Regularly scheduled advisory board meetings in May and November afford members a means of receiving results of the research program and an opportunity to exchange information and experiences with the Research Center personnel and Advisory Board Members from other companies.

Results of the work are distributed in terms of reports and user-friendly PC computer programs for managing problems in erosion, erosion-corrosion and CO2 corrosion.  Members receive copies of the user-friendly computer programs SPPS: Erosion (Sand Production Pipe Saver for Sand Erosion), SPPS:E-C (Sand Production Pipe Saver: erosion-corrosion prediction with CO2 and sand), SPPS:CO2 (Sweet Production Pipe Saver for CO2:  corrosion prediction for CO2) and more recently developed program for Liquid Impact Erosion Software (LIES).

The University of Tulsa researchers form a multidisciplinary team that spans several disciplines including mechanical engineering, electro-chemistry, chemistry and petroleum engineering to address the multidisciplinary problems of erosion/corrosion. The research team includes five professors, a full-time technician, three post-doctoral research associates, computer science programming specialists, several consultants, and many PhD and graduate and undergraduate students.