Michael A. Streicher was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 metallurgist and engineer who became internationally recognized for his work on the testing and development of corrosion

Corrosion

Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...

-resistant stainless steel

Stainless steel

In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....

 alloys. He published widely in technical journals and textbooks and received numerous patents for his inventions.

Biography

He was born on September 6, 1921, in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, the son of Johann Simon Streicher and Olga Schmidt Streicher. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1931. Streicher received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...

 in 1943, an M.S. degree in chemical engineering from Syracuse University

Syracuse University

Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

 in 1945, and a doctorate in metallurgy from Lehigh University

Lehigh University

Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. It was established in 1865 by Asa Packer as a four-year technical school, but has grown to include studies in a wide variety of disciplines...

 in 1947. The latter degree and subsequent postdoctoral research were sponsored by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. For 30 years, from 1949 to 1979, Streicher worked as a research metallurgist at the Experimental Station of the DuPont

DuPont

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...

 Co. in Wilmington

Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...

, Delaware

Delaware

Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...

. He began as a research engineer, advancing to the positions of research fellow and principal consultant. For the next eight years, he served as research professor at the University of Delaware

University of Delaware

The university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...

 in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Thereafter, he worked as an independent consultant, including work with the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) on safe storage containers for nuclear waste.

His pioneering work developing superferritic stainless steels led to the development of new alloys (see United States Patents 3957544, 4119765, 4456482 and 4456483) which find extensive use in high-efficiency home gas furnaces, as well as in industry.

Streicher was a leading developer of corrosion tests for stainless steels and other corrosion resistant alloys. Working through ASTM International

ASTM International

ASTM International, known until 2001 as the American Society for Testing and Materials , is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, and services...

 he was instrumental in standardizing intergranular corrosion tests, including the ferric sulfate-sulfuric acid test now called the "Streicher Test" in his honor.

In 1973, Streicher received the Willis Rodney Whitney

Willis Rodney Whitney

Willis Rodney Whitney was an American chemist and founder of the research laboratory of the General Electric Company.- Early life and studies :...

 Award given to one scientist each year by NACE International

NACE International

NACE International is a professional organization for the corrosion control industry established in 1943. As of 2010, there are approximately 22,312 NACE members in over 100 countries. NACE International is involved in every industry and area of corrosion prevention and control, from chemical...

, which is a large (16,000 member) professional organization devoted to corrosion and related problems.

Patents

2793191 Streicher "Corrosion Inhibition of Monobasic Acids" May 21, 1957

2806000 Streicher "Cleaning Stainless Steel" September 10, 1957

2839392 Streicher "Corrosion Resistant Alloy" June 17, 1958

2976169 Streicher "Immersion Deposition of Tin" May 21, 1961

3481762 Streicher "Metal Lubrication Process" December 2, 1969

3929473 Streicher "Chromium, molybdenum ferritic stainless steels" December 30, 1975

3932174 Streicher "Chromium, molybdenum ferritic stainless steels" January 13, 1976

3932175 Streicher "Chromium, molybdenum ferritic stainless steels" January 13, 1976

Awards

• Fellow of ASM International (1970)
• Willis Rodney Whitney
  Willis Rodney Whitney
  Willis Rodney Whitney was an American chemist and founder of the research laboratory of the General Electric Company.- Early life and studies :...
  
   Award from NACE International
  NACE International
  NACE International is a professional organization for the corrosion control industry established in 1943. As of 2010, there are approximately 22,312 NACE members in over 100 countries. NACE International is involved in every industry and area of corrosion prevention and control, from chemical...
  
  (1973)
• Fellow of NACE International (1994).

Works

• PITTING CORROSION OF 18Cr-8Ni STAINLESS STEEL, Journal of the Electrochemical Society (U.S.) Absorbed Electrochem. Technol.; Vol: 103, Pages: 375-90, 1956 Jul 01.
• Synergistic inhibition of ferric ion corrosion during chemical cleaning of metal surfaces, Corrosion (Houston) ; Vol/Issue: 28:4, 1972 Apr 01.
• Development of pitting-resistant Fe--Cr--Mo alloys, Corrosion, v. 30, no. 3, pp. 77-91, 1974 Mar 01.
• Microstructures and some properties of Fe-28%Cr-4%Mo alloys, Corrosion, v. 30, no. 4, pp. 115-124, 1974 Apr 01.
• Effect of composition and structure on crevice, intergranular, and stress corrosion of some wrought Ni--Cr--Mo alloys, Corrosion ; Vol/Issue: 32:3, 1976 Mar 01.
• Stainless Steels: Past, Present and Future, pp 1-34 in Stainless Steel '77, Metals Soc., London, (1977)
• Effect of silicon on the corrosion resistance of iron in sulfuric acid, (with B. J. Saldanha) Mater. Performance ; Vol/Issue: 25:1, 1986 Jan 01.
• Galvanic Corrosion of Duplex Fe-Cr-10% Ni Alloys in Reducing Acids (with Y. H. Yau) in ASTM STP 978, ASTM International, "Galvanic Corrosion", 1988.
• Guidelines for Development of Structural Integrity Programs for DOE High-Level Waste Storage Tanks (with K. Bandyopadhyay, S. Bush, M. Kassir, B. Mather, P. Shewmon, B. Thompson, D. van Rooyen, and J. Weeks) BNL-52527, 1997. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York.
• Limitations on use of pitting potential measurements, Materials Performance ; VOL. 36 ; ISSUE: 1, 1997 Jan 01.
• Effect of alloying elements on stress corrosion cracking of stainless alloys, Materials Performance ; VOL. 36 ; ISSUE: 11, 1997 Nov 01.
• Effect of condenser design on stress corrosion cracking of stainless alloys in boiling chloride solutions, (with Y. L. Chiang), Corrosion ; VOL. 54 ; ISSUE: 9, 1998 Sep 01.
• Materials problems with temporary and permanent storage of high-level nuclear wastes", Materials Performance; Vol/Issue: 38:1, 1999 Jan 01.
• Austenitic and Ferritic Stainless Steels, Uhlig's Corrosion Handbook, Second Edition, R. Winston Revie, Ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2000.