ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is about paints that prevent corrosion. It includes heavy-duty protective coatings used to protect structural steel, infrastructure components made of steel, and heavy steel process equipment. The book covers the daily concerns and choices faced by engineers who use heavy-duty coating. Most aluminum alloys used as construction metals are much less susceptible to corrosion than steel, and paint coatings are in most cases applied for aesthetical reasons and not corrosion protection. The coatings applied on aluminum are therefore usually thinner than the coatings applied on steel. The organic polymeric coating system may vary in complexity from the simple barrier coating on a blast-cleaned surface to a combination of conversion coating, primer, intermediate coats, and topcoat. A coating system consisting of three different coats: zinc-rich primer, barrier coat with flake-shaped pigments, and UV-resistant topcoat.
