Prior to founding InterCorr, Dr. Kane was Associate Manager of Battelle Houston Operations (a branch of Battelle Memorial Institute) where he coordinated and conducted research and engineering consultation in the areas of metallurgy, corrosion and chemistry. He has worked on solving materials problems associated with offshore marine operations; aerospace applications; the production, transmission and refining of natural gas and crude oil, chemical production, storage and wastes, and power generation. His work has emphasized the behavior of metallic, ceramic and polymeric materials in aggressive service environments including the effect of inhibitors on elastomeric materials.
Before joining Battelle, Dr. Kane was on the staff of Exxon Production Research Company where he investigated the metallurgy of oilfield materials. His activities primarily focused on stress corrosion cracking and hydrogen embrittlement of high strength steel, stainless alloys and nickel-base alloys, pioneering the use of these corrosion resistant alloys (CRAs) in severe downhole oilfield service as an alternative to corrosion inhibitors and steel. His initial work in this area was published and he was awarded the NACE A.B. Campbell Award for Young Authors in 1977. He also conducted and supervised work in the areas of high temperature mechanical properties, corrosion, fracture mechanics, metallurgical evaluation, electrochemistry and failure investigation aimed directly at increased reliability and minimizing service failures.
Well established as an expert on the effects of chemical agents (including hydrogen) on the behavior of engineering materials, Dr. Kane has worked for better guidelines for the selection and specification of engineering materials. He developed detailed temperature, strength (hardness), and H2S concentration guidelines for the use of high strength steels in H2S service. His current technical activities involve the assessment of advanced steels for resistance to wet H2S corrosion in oilfield and refinery service, prediction of refinery crude oil corrosivity, evaluation of chemical compatibility of materials, and the use of expert systems to optimize selection of materials and corrosivity assessment.
Dr. Kane initiated activities in the manufacturing of corrosion testing and monitoring equipment through the establishment of the InterCorr Specialty Equipment Division. This activity includes equipment and test procedure development, equipment design and manufacturing. The equipment includes corrosion test cells, autoclaves, multiphase flow loops, and testing machines for slow strain rate and crack growth testing. This activity also includes a complete line of portable monitoring equipment for evaluation of corrosion, scaling, biofilming and chemical treatment for field and laboratory use.
The technical society memberships of Dr. Kane include NACE International, ASM and ASTM. Dr. Kane is currently active in NACE Technical Committees in the areas of Metallurgy of Oilfield Equipment, Refining Industry Corrosion, and Corrosion Problems in the Process Industries. He has either worked on or chaired many NACE Task Groups involving effects of H2S on engineering materials (steels, CRAs and elastomers).
Dr. Kane has participated in the development of NACE standard MR-01-75 and several of its recent revisions (including MR0175/ISO 15156) along with the standards development efforts on wet H2S cracking. He currently works actively on the NACE TG 299 Oversight Committee for the recently revised and expanded standard NACE MR0175 / ISO15156. Dr. Kane has co-edited a Monograph of H2S papers with Mr. Robert Tuttle and a book on Wet H2S Cracking of Steels and Weldments with Dr. Michael Cayard and Mr. Richard Horvath. He also lectured and served on organizing committees for the NACE Educational Seminars, NACE Gulf Coast Corrosion Control Seminar, ASM Houston Chapter Education Courses and SPE forum series. He has been an active member of ASTM G-1 committee on Corrosion of Metals and chaired several task groups on high pressure, corrosion under insulation and slow strain rate testing He has edited STP 1210 and STP 1401 for ASTM which contained the proceedings of the Symposia on Slow Strain Rate Testing. He has also chaired ASTM Workshops on Fracture Mechanics Tests in Hydrogen, and Testing of Corrosion Inhibitors. Dr. Kane has also chaired and edited proceedings from the First International Symposium on Environmental Effects on Advanced Materials, the First World Congress on Superconductivity and the Houston Space and Telecommunications Conference. He has organized and chaired Intercorr/96, the First Global Internet Corrosion Conference, which has over 50 on-line technical papers from over 25 countries.
Dr. Kane was honored as the NACE A.B. Campbell award winner for young authors in 1977 and as plenary lecturer at the NACE Corrosion/96 Corrosion Conference, NACE Seventh Middle East Corrosion Conference (Manama, Bahrain), and the Conference on Industrial Corrosion and Corrosion Control Technology Conference sponsored by the Kuwaiti Institute for Scientific Research (Safat, Kuwait). He was a keynote presenter at the International Conference on Corrosion Monitoring, Mitigation and Assessment in Mumbai, India sponsored by NACE International, at the Symposium on Interactions of Steel with Hydrogen in the Petroleum Industry (The Metallurgical Society of Canadian Institute of Metallurgy), and at the Scandinavian Corrosion Congress (Reykjavík, Iceland). In 2019, Dr. Kane was vice chairman and organizer of a NACE Research Topical Symposium on Hydrogen Embrittlement of Bolting and Metallic Materials and will be chairman of another NACE symposium in 2020 on this same topic.
EDUCATION
B.S. (1971), M.S. (1973) and Ph.D. (1974)
Metallurgy and Material Science
Case Western Reserve University
HONORS
- Graduated Magna Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science in Metallurgy and Materials Science, Case Western Reserve University,
- Tau Beta Pi, Ohio Alpha Chapter at Case Western Reserve University, Honorary Technical Society; inducted
- Received A.B. Campbell Young Author Award from the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE),
- Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Rice University – Medical Center Chapter, inducted
- NACE Technical Achievement Award,
- Plenary Lecturer – NACE International Corrosion/96 Annual Conference, March
- Plenary Lecturer – NACE Seventh Middle East Corrosion Conference, Manama, Bahrain (February 1996)
- Plenary Lecturer – Conference on Industrial Corrosion and Corrosion Control Technology Conference sponsored by the Kuwaiti Institute for Scientific Research, Safat, Kuwait, Oct.
- Invited Lecturer at the International Conference on Corrosion Monitoring, Mitigation and Assessment in Mumbai, India sponsored by NACE International, December
- Received Sam Tour Award for distinguished contributions to research, development and evaluation of corrosion testing methods from ASTM,
- Invited Lecturer, Scandinavian Corrosion Congress, Plenary Lecture – Online Corrosion Monitoring for Process Control and Asset Management, Reykjavik, Iceland (April 2004).
- Resolution of Appreciation, American Petroleum Institute, Committee on Refinery Equipment (for API documents 939 A through E (2010 and 2016).
PATENT FILINGS
- U.S. Patent No. 4,245,698: “Superalloys Having Improved Resistance to Hydrogen Embrittlement and Methods of Producing and Using the Same”.
- U.S. Patent No. 5,853,620: “Composition and Compounds to Minimize Hydrogen Charging and Hydrogen Induced Cracking of Steels”.
- U.S. Patent. (Application filed): “Methylolated Amine Polymer Corrosion Inhibitor”, Submitted December 1996.
- U.S. Patent No. 2010/0107767 A1: “Method and System for Detecting Corrosion Under Insulation”.
- U.S. Patent No. 2009/0319084 A1: “Method and Means for Tracking Corrosion-Related Plant Operation Costs”.
- U.S. Patent No. 2006/07025138: “Method and Apparatus for Hydrogen Sulfide Monitoring”.
PUBLICATIONS
295 technical publications (1975 through 2019) dealing with materials selection, metallurgy, structure / properties, corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen embrittlement, sulfide stress cracking, lab/field corrosion testing and monitoring, and simulation of industrial service environments. These include industrial applications involving: Oil and gas production, refining, chemical processing, inhibitors, software development, coatings/linings, and corrosion.