Obituary

undertook postgraduate research, also at Newcastle entitled: ''The Hydrogen Embrittlement of Niobium and Vanadium'', for which he was awarded his PhD in 1970.Paul spent his early career in the steel industry, initially at the British Iron and Steel Research Association (BISRA) then, in 1973, joining the British Steel Corporation in Rotherham as Section Leader, researching environmental fracture and developing new steels with improved resistance to environmentally assisted cracking (EAC).In 1978 he moved further south and joined the Central Electricity Research Laboratories in Leatherhead as Group Leader of EAC, studying stress corrosion, localised corrosion and corrosion fatigue in conventional and nuclear power plants.After privatisation of the electricity industry, Paul remained with National Power as consultant in asset management and remaining life assessment of components, including novel and early applications developing least-cost remedial methodologies such as: RAM (Reliability, Availability and Maintainability) and RCM (Reliability Centred Maintenance) for the procurement, operation and maintenance of power plants.In 1996, Paul became an independent consultant with expertise in life assessment of materials and optimisation of maintenance methods while continuing his life-long interests in environmentally assisted cracking phenomena.For six years, until his illness, Paul worked as a consultant in the Electrochemistry and Corrosion Group at NPL, responsible for running the Lifetime Management of Materials service.His scientific insight and depth of engineering experience