BP Global (March 14) -- Ground-breaking research is underway at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), a partner in the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials (BP-ICAM), into the potential of smart autonomous coatings that would enable engineers in the energy industry to see cracks in the coatings applied to structures, equipment, pipelines and tank walls and signal before overall coating failure occurs. This would drastically improve the ability to identify and manage risk, and significantly reduce maintenance costs.