An Experimental Investigation of Impressed Current Cathodic Protection System ICCP in Basra Soil
An Experimental Investigation of Impressed Current Cathodic Protection System ICCP in Basra Soil
An Experimental Investigation of Impressed Current Cathodic Protection System ICCP in Basra Soil
ISSN 2229-5518
Abstract— This work involved experimental investigation for impressed current cathodic protection. The work involve site reading for the
soil resistivity and potential difference between pipe and soil in four sites (AL-Zubair1, AL-dawajin, Sport city and Hamdan) along oil
exporting pipeline in Basra /Iraq. Simulated cathodic system has been installed in Laboratory in order to calculate current density required
for full cathodic protection of steel pipe (X60). Depending on data survey and experimental work results; optimum cathodic system has
been designed. The result of optimum design reduce the current required for Cathodic Protection system from 247 Ampere to 206
Ampere, Also the number of anodes reduced from 139 to 116 anodes.
Index Terms— Cathodic protection, ICCP, Underground corrosion, corrosion, pipeline, CP, impressed current cathodic protection
—————————— ——————————
1 INTRODUCTION
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corrosion on buried pipelines involves a combination of (a) are: Zubair 1, AL-Dawajin, Sport city and Hamadan.
coatings and (b) cathodic protection (CP) [1]. Many studies
have conducted experimentally and analytically the relation i) Soil resistivity:
between soil properties and underground corrosion and me-
Wenner Four-Electrode Method was used to
thods used to reduce the risk of underground corrosion, main-
measure the soil resistivity, the Wenner four-electrode
ly "Cathodic protection” methods. Ikechukwu et.al, (2014), method requires four metal electrodes be placed with
investigated the effect of soil properties such as pH and resis- equal separation in a straight line at the surface of the
tivity towards metal loss of carbon steel. Results shown that, soil.
both parameters had an influence on buried steel corrosion
but the soil resistivity had a greatly influence compared to soil ii) Potential difference:
pH [2]. Kim and Wook Kim (2001) explained the effect of tem-
perature on the cathodic protection criteria of steel pipeline. The potential difference between pipe and surrounding
Full protection could not be achieved at (-0.85V) vs CSE at soil measured by using a copper standard electrode
high temperatures, while extra negative potential difference (Cu / CuSo4), in which a wire end is linked with the
was required to obtain full cathodic protection [3]. Al- Jawary, pipe, while the other end linked with the standard
(2005), studied the effect distance between the anode and ca- electrode.
thode on cathodic protection current density. It was found the
current density increased with increasing of distance between 2.3 3 Installation of ICCP rig
cathode and anode [4]. Saleh, (2005), studied the influence of Simulated cathodic protection system was installed both of the
some parameter on the cathodic protection current density cathode (carbon steel pipe segment) and the anode (Scrap
(ICP). These parameters are conductivity, temperature. The steel) were suspended in the solution, all in the glass bath. The
results found that the current density increased proportionally working and auxiliary electrodes were 40 cm apart and im-
with increasing these parameters. [5]. mersed in the solution at a depth of 5 cm from the top and the
bottom respectively. Copper/copper sulfate standard elec-
trode (CSE) used to measure the potential difference required.
2 MATERIALS & METHODS It has to be indicated that all the immersed parts of stands
made from stainless steel in order to eliminate any possible
2.1 Materials corrosion that may lead to stray current effect and cause an
The material used in laboratory work was carbon steel pipe error in the measurements. The distance between reference
(X60) with dimensions of 10cm length, 5.2cm inside diameter, electrode and cathode (pipe) was about 5 cm in order to avoid
6 cm outside diameter, and 4mm wall thickness, and rod of IR drop. Two multiameter was linked to measure the current
scrap iron with 1cm diameter and 10 cm length as auxiliary required and potential difference between pipe and standard
anode. electrode. The test solution was changed after each run and
the water bath was emptied from the used solution and
2.2 Field measurements washed by DM water, Moreover all the accessories immersed
Field readings were taken for the soil resistivity and in the solution were washed by DM water to ensure that there
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 8, Issue 7, July-2017 1312
ISSN 2229-5518
is no corrosion product traces from the test solution of the last Table 1 Shape functions (K) for impressed current cathodic
run were left and to ensure the solution was empty from elec- protection anodes.
trical charge, the specimen (cathode) was also rewashed and
re-cleaned after each run.
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i) Calculate number of anodes needed to satisfy manufac-
ture's current density limitations.
Where: ρ is soil resistivity in (Ω.cm), Ra is maximum anode The soil resistivity survey has been done by using four-
ground-bed resistance (Ω)., K is the anode shape factor, P is winner method. The survey shows very high values of
paralleling factor, S is center-to-center spacing between anode resistivity at AL- Zubair site and is gradually diminished as
backfill columns in (m), L is length of the anode backfill col- going head toward the south down to Faw. This is due to the
umn in (m). sandy soil of Zubair , this type of soil does not retain moisture,
By rearranging of above equations, the following equation while it was find that the soil of FAW is muddy and heavy
obtained to calculate number of anodes needed to meet maxi- moisture. The reading of soil resistivity at site shown that the
mum anode ground-bed resistance requirements. soil resistivity gradually decrease with depth, however after 3
meter depth, the difference in soil resistance is slight
compared with that on the surface.
Potential difference between pipe and surrounding soil is Table 5 the current density required for each site
measured by using Cu/CuSO4 standard electrode at each site. 3.5 Cathodic protection calculations
Table 4 potential difference results at each site. The following calculations used to design optimum cathodic
protection system to protect the oil exporting pipeline under
study. The optimum design, then compared with exist
3.3 Effect of conductivity on the CP current cathodic system used to protect this pipeline. In this work four
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The increasing in conductivity leads to increasing ions and
electrons movement causing current flow, in order to show the
influence of solution conductivity on (ICCP) current, different stations are placed out of the seven stations along 32km of the
weights of NaCl was added to solution to increase the pipeline with an external diameter of 42 inches.
conductivity. It was clear that, whenever the electrical
conductivity of the solution increased (resistivity decreased)
with increasing salt concentration, the impressed current 3.5.1 Total current demand
required for protection also increased. That is because NaCl is
an ionic compound, thus when it is dissolved in water The coating efficiency assumed to be 97% i.e. 3% of total pipe-
conducts electricity and cause further current flow which line area is bare, and the total pipeline area should be pro-
leads to more CP current required to achieve desired potential tected by each station equal to 26630 m2.
shift between cathode (pipe) and solution. Table 6 shows the results of the total Currents obtained by the
software according to standard condition and according to
Fig (1) shown relationship between CP current and excited CP systems conditions. The effect of variation in soil
conductivity value on the total current required for the ca-
thodic protection techniques is very obvious ,decreasing in the
soil resistivity leads to increasing in current required and vice
versa. The soil resistivity plays two main roles in this case, the
first is that with increasing the humidity of the soil, the possi-
bility of corrosion becomes more and this means more im-
pressed current has to be given to stop this phenomenon. It is
more convenient to present the results schematically as shown
in Figure 2.
conductivity
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at all stations, especially in Hamdan site, the potential differ-
ence in Hamdan site reach -1.39 V, this huge value of potential
difference can cause harm effect on coating and also can cause
hydrogen embrittlement for steel.
3 – The number of anodes installed at each station does not
commensurate with the amount of current supplied to reach
the field potential difference between pipeline and surround-
ing soil, the required number of anodes is 139 Anode, while
the actual number of supplied anodes is only 100 Anode.
4 – Pipeline should not buried deeper than 3 meters be-
cause the change in soil resistivity after 3 m very little and not
consider.
6 REFERENCE
Fig 2: Comparison between current values (standard and field 6.1 Figures and Tables
conditions) [1]- Ron J Hugo, Y. Frank Cheng, Chris Finley &Paul Tru-
del, "The Engineering Science of Oil Pipelines", Science Media
Cenrte of Canada, 2011
3.5.2 Number of Anodes [2]- Ikechukwu, Ugochukwu, Ejimofor, Obioma," Correla-
South Oil Company (SOC) is installing 25 anodes for each tion Between Soil Properties And External Corrosion Growth
station. The standard operational life of these anodes is 20 Rate Of Carbon Steel.", The International Journal Of Engineer-
years, but according to readings, anodes consumed in a period ing And Science (IJES), Volume 3, Issue 10, 2014 .
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[3]- Kim & Kim Wook, "Cathodic Protection Criteria of
not exceeding four years under field conditions, this short age
Thermally Insulated Pipeline Buried In Soil", Elsevier Science
of anodes result from supplying large amount of current from
Ltd, 2001.
external source larger than their capacity. In order to calculate [4]- Al- Jawary. K., " The Influence Of Distance On Cathodic
the real number of anodes required for cathodic protection, Protection Of Buried Pipelines In Soil, , University Of Tech-
The results shown that the total number of anodes required nology, Chemical Engineering, Baghdad, December, 2005.
matching potential requirement in field for all 4 stations equal [5]- Saleh. Sh.," Study the Effect of Some Variables On Ca-
to 139 Anodes while the optimum conditions required only thodic Protection Current Density ", University Of Technolo-
(116) Anodes as shown in Fig 3 This explains the short age of gy, Chemical Engineering, Baghdad, June, 2005.
[6]- U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers, " Design: Electrical En-
anodes in field.
gineering Cathodic Protection", Unified Facilities Criteria,
UFC 3-570-02n 16 January 2004
[7]- Ezekiel Enterprises, LLC," Introduction To Electrical
Design For Cathodic Protection Systems", The International
Journal Of Engineering And Science (IJES), Volume 3, Issue
11,2015.
5 CONCLUSIONS:
The following conclusions can be drawn from the present
work:
1 –The current density required for full cathodic protection
increased proportionally with conductivity increased (inverse-
ly with resistivity).
2 – The potential difference at field exceeded normal range
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