In 2004 it was timely to reconsider the personality of Jean RIST (1900-1944) who, sixty years earlier, was at the origin of the foundation of IRSID and who gave his life for the liberation of his country. This paper recalls his career from 1923 to 1943 at the “Établissements Jacob HOLTZER”, his active contribution to the “Cercle d'Études des Métaux” of Saint-Étienne right from the creation of this association, his commitment at the “Comité d'Organisation de la Sidérurgie” in 1943-1944 for the draught of the founding principle of IRSID, his participation to the “Résistance” until the sacrifice of his life. This paper should incite to meditate on the example of this visionary engineer, deeply concerned with research in industry and of this idealistic citizen, a man honored by SF2M by the creation of the Jean RIST medal.

As any other industrial process, galvanizing has its own history and this is the first time that an exhaustive report of it is presented. Protection of flat steel against corrosion by an other metal is indeed a very old process, that goes back to the Middle Ages. The first coated sheet was a tin coated sheet, known as tin-plate, preceding by several centuries the very galvanized sheet.

Discontinuous precipitation and dissolution in the Al-Zn alloy system has been the subject of many theoretical and experimental investigations that have contributed to the understanding of the different mechanisms which control them. However, many questions remain unanswered because of the complexity of the constituted phases which are affected by the rate of quenching, the amount of deformation, the temperature of homogenization and the ageing effect The purpose of this work is to clarify the effect of temperature and deformation on the mechanisms of these two reactions during ageing of the AI-15at.%Zn alloy. The techniques of analysis used in this respect are optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Vickers microbardness.

Anisothermal and isothermal oxidation tests have been used to establish correlations between growth kinetics, morphological and microstructural evolutions of NiO layers formed during the oxidation of high purity nickel. It is shown that the transport phenomena taking place during the growth of such layers are complex and a growth model is proposed, which takes into account the diffusion of cationic species (in volume and by short-circuits), the transport of oxygen and the interfacial reactions.

In this study the microstructural characterization and the abrasion resistance of a series of Ni based alloys containing 10 at. % Cr, 5-15 at. % B and 5-20 at. % Si are presented. The formed hard components are borides of chromium and nickel (CrB, Cr5B3, Ni3B) and a silicon nickel compound (Ni5Si2) in a <Ni> matrix. These phases appear either in primary solid solution form or in biphased eutectic form or in secondary fine precipitates form. The loss of mass, the abrasion factor and the microhardness of the various phases versus time were measured. The best results are obtained for 10 at. % B and Si contents of about 10 at. %.

Several parts of degraded organ pipes belonging to some organs produced in different periods (from the 18th to 20th century) and from different Italian geographical areas have been examined and investigated in order to identify the possible causes of the degradation phenomena. An analysis through DSC-DTA measurements has been performed to define the crystallographic transformation of the studied alloys and a metallographic analysis has been realized to point out the microstructural characteristics. The morphological analysis has been improved by SEM equipped with an EDS device which permits a quantitative chemical characterization of the intact zones and of the degraded ones. The presence of chlorides has been identified as the starting factor of the degradation phenomena.