Modeling of Pipeline Corrosion Control by Cathodic Protection

Modeling of pipeline corrosion control by cathodic protection, has been made. It can augment the design process and present a number of experimentally determined factors that should be applied to present modeling code development. To improve the computational approach to cathodic protection system design for bare and coated pipe, different factors e.g. environment resistivity, different coating materials, current density, location of anode and attenuation potential along the pipe must be taken into account. It is found that polyethylene tape coating is more proper than other coatings which act to electrically isolate the pipeline from its surroundings, thus cutting off the return electron path and preventing the formation of a corrosion cell. Coatings protect more than 99% of the pipe surface. Increasing the environment resistivity decreases corrosion rate and current density. Moreover, location of anode can be controlled by potential and current density, which has a major effect on corrosion rate of partial cathodic protection. Environment resistivity affects limiting current density which is found to be important.