Jan 29, 2014

Sankara Papavinasam, Ph.D., president of CorrMagnet Consulting Inc., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, has received the Francis LaQue Memorial Award from ASTM International.

Established in 1988, the LaQue Award is presented by ASTM International Committee G01 on Corrosion of Metals in recognition of outstanding contributions to the committee and to the field of corrosion testing and evaluation. Papavinasam was honored for his leadership and technical expertise in the development of standards related to corrosion technology.

An ASTM fellow who received the Award of Merit in 2011, Papavinasam has been a member of ASTM International since 1999. He is vice chairman of Committee G01, chairman of Subcommittee G01.11 on Electrochemical Measurements in Corrosion Testing, and also serves on Committee D01 on Paint and Related Coatings, Materials and Applications.

Papavinasam has led several joint industry projects as well as individual client projects with more than 50 companies, developing solutions and insights to control internal corrosion, external corrosion, microbiologically influenced corrosion of oil and gas production facilities, and transmission pipelines. He founded CorrMagnet in 2013 after 19 years at CANMET, the Canadian Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology, in Ottawa, where he served as program manager for oil and gas pipelines and group leader of the materials assessment group on corrosion and characterization.

In addition to ASTM International, Papavinasam is a fellow of NACE International and a member of the Electrochemical Society and SSPC: The Society for Protective Coatings. He authored a book, “Corrosion Control in the Oil and Gas Industry,” and has published more than 100 papers. He also   developed three software products, holds two patents, and has appeared as a subject expert before National Academy of Sciences committees and the Canadian Senate committee on crude oil corrosivity.

Papavinasam has received several career awards, the most recent being the Natural Resources Canada Minerals and Metals Sector Award for Exceptional Contributions to Science in 2013 and the NACE Materials Performance Readers’ Choice, Corrosion Innovation of the Year Award for his “bio-corrosion probe.” He holds master’s degrees from Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India, and Annamalai University, Chidambaram, India, and received his doctorate from Bangalore University, Bangalore, India.

ASTM PR Contact: Erin K. Brennan, Phone: 610-832-9602; ebrennan@astm.org

Release #9581