The use of coatings in industry is growing and will continue to grow because of the economic and technical advantages they offer over uncoated materials. Although a wide variety of materials and application of techniques are available, much less is known about the properties of specific coatings and their measurement. This volume contains some 26 papers that were presented at a symposium organised to explore these questions and they represent state-of-the-art technology. The symposium was divided into five sessions dealing with new coating technologies, measurement of coating properties, marine coatings, field applied coatings for corrosion control and tribological coatings.