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About the company

SVÚOM Ltd. is a company, which specialises in the field of corrosion, protection against corrosion and surface treatment. It continues and follows up the expert activities of the National Research Institute for the Protection of Materials (SVÚOM). This state institute was established in 1954 and its main intention was to provide a complex and centralized research and development of protection against corrosion in Czechoslovakia. During its nearly 50 years of existence this department gained a noted and significant position in the field of corrosion and material protection. The state research department for the protection of materials was the resort research institute of Ministry of Industry. After the completion of an expert activity of the State Research Institute for the Protection of Materials, the valuable work experience gained over many years of practice is therefore further used and developed by SVÚOM Ltd. in the field of corrosion and corrosion protection according to customer requirements.

History of company

In its scope of activities, SVÚOM Company Limited is the successor of SVÚOM State Research Institute for Materials Protection in Prague.

Period 1949 - 1999

SVÚOM was founded in 1949 by Milič Roubal, who pursued the idea of combining, within a single organization, the research into the corrosion of metals with that relating to the problems of metal finishing — an approach which was unique at the time, worldwide. In those days there were established research organizations dealing with metals corrosion, and other research organizations focused on surface finishing.

The new institute took up the results achieved by Czech scientists of the period, including V. Čupr, J. Teindl, J. Rožan and some others who had studied various facets of the corrosion protection of metals. The major areas of knowledge required for this rather broad field of science were covered by sourcing the works of the ''forefathers'' of corrosion protection, such as U.R.Evans, M.Pourbaix, G.V.Akimov, M.G.Fontana, P. Lacombe, J.E.O.Mayne, W.J. Müller, H. H. Uhlig, C. Wagner and many others.

The problems relating to the protection of metals from corrosion attack came to be part of the curricula since the 1950s at the Prague Institute of Chemistry & Technology, at Mining School at Ostrava and at the Pardubice Institute of Chemical Technology, and in subsequent years, elsewhere at Czechoslovak universities. Since the early 1960s, Czech translations of foreign monographs as well as original Czech book productions started appearing on the local market.

Applied research was focused on the corrosion of metals, surface finishings, and dealing with problems where the corrosion damage caused to electrical and electrotechnology devices was affected by environmental factors. SVÚOM acted as a comprehensive research center addressing to problems relating to the degradation and protection of products made of metals and exposed to various atmospheric and service conditions.

Period 1999 - 2017

The current research program is focused on advancing our understanding of the new mechanisms underlying the corrosion behavior of materials and coatings in a variety of industries and in all modes of transport. New experimental techniques are being tested, and data is being collected on new materials and coatings under prototype testing conditions, hand in hand with the development of progressive methods also involving models capable of forecasting certain types of corrosion.

SVÚOM´s specialists are lectors in various courses of lifelong learning, e.g. courses for corrosion technics and engineers and further they participate in education at techncial universities (ČVUT, VŠCHT, etc.) by the form of consultations with students, by the supervisions of seminary and diploma studies, etc.. The results of their studies are pesented on conferences and journals.

SVÚOM Ltd. ´s specialists participate on preparation of international standards for the field of corrosion and corrosion protection and on implementation of these international standards into system of Czech technical standards (TNK 32). Since year 2009 SVÚOM is a Centre of technical standardization for the field of corrosion and corrosion protection.

Over and beyond the scope of SVUOM's research activities, the staff of SVUOM Ltd. is active as independent experts and consultants participating in short-term industrial projects on Czech territory. Both these activities rely on collections of data on the microstructural and material properties of new materials and coatings being subjected to testing. This is a necessary step toward generating a professional data base that can be accessed by industry as well as by government bodies sponsoring new research initiatives. SVUOM Ltd. has been actively involved in studies of the problems relating to the resistance of materials and coatings in actual service applications, and has coped with these problems by means of adopting both standard and new techniques. These include interdisciplinary approaches to both experimentation and research.

Since its establishing in year 1999 the SVÚOM Ltd. re-invested into equipments of testing and research laboratories to allow solving of requirements and demands of field of corrosion and corrosion protection. Modernization of experimental basis is continual procedure.

The part of SVÚOM Ltd. is certficated laboratory No. 1096 according to standard EN ISO/IEC 17 025 by Czech Accreditation Institute. SVÚOM Ltd.'s specialists are involved into consultanting and inspecting activities (inspectors with certificate according to EN V 12387) in the field of corrosion and corrosion protection for all industrial sectors.

SVÚOM Ltd.. performs 4 atmospheric test sites where the climatic parameters and air pollution have been long-term and continually measured toether with repeated estimation of atmospheric corrosivity.

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