College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) has played host to local and international material engineering experts at a high-level meeting of the Forum for Material Technology in Qatar.
The focus of the meeting was to expand on material technology knowledge in Qatar by enlisting international experts to share their research findings.
During the meeting, Dr Alan Turnbull of the National Physics Laboratory, the UK, and Dr Morten Poulsen of the Danish Technological Institute, Denmark, presented to 30 of Qatar’s leading material technology specialists working in the energy sector.
Further, the forum attendees met to develop the guiding principles of the group, which was created earlier in 2015.
Since the inaugural meeting in April, the forum has doubled in size, drawing representatives from industry leaders, colleges and universities. Prior to this, there was no network for building capacity in the material technology field. Seeing this as an issue, CNA-Q engineering technology professor Hanan Farhat teamed up with Maersk Oil Qatar engineer Bruce Cowe to drive the forum’s development.
“As Qatar’s oil and gas industry expands, so too does the need for material engineering to support it. The constant care and investment required to deliver safe, sustainable growth in infrastructure is dependent on sharing knowledge around the materials we build with,” said Farhat. “Establishing this network is extremely important to the industry as the Gulf region has its own unique challenges given that the climate and environment here is completely different from other places in the world.”
The forum’s mandate is to establish a meeting platform for sharing best practices through peer-to-peer presentations and encouraging joint industry research projects.
The forum aims to build a stronger material technology sector through safety, integrity, environmental protection and standardisation.