New Offshore Wind Cathodic Protection Standard out for Public Comment
A proposed new BS EN ISO Standard for CP of Offshore Wind foundations is presently in its public comment stage.
Any ICorr Members with expertise in this area are welcome to comment. The Draft Standard and the comments sheet are available on the ICorr Web site, https://www.icorr.org, in the Members Section. The closing date for comments is 12th December 2020, but if you wish to comment, please be quick. You can submit your comments directly to Committee Service Centre mailbox [csc] csc@bsigroup.com, or preferably, they can be submitted to Corrosion House who can collate them to be presented via the BSI Cathodic Protection Committee, GEL 603.
The board of Directors of Winn & Coales International Limited have announced that Mr Chris Winn, the great grandson of the founder Paul Winn will succeed his father, David Winn OBE, as the Chairman of the Group. Chris Winn becomes the fourth Chairman of the Company since it was founded in 1883. He has extensive and broad experience within the Group and maintains the position of Managing Director of Winn & Coales (Denso) Ltd and Executive Director of Winn & Coales International Ltd.
In addition, Dr Keith Erskine, the grandson of the second of the two company founders, Mr Frank B. Coales, will assume the role of Deputy Chairman of the Group. Dr Keith Erskine maintains the position of non-executive Director of Winn & Coales International Ltd.
The branch held its first technical meeting of the new season on 8th October, which was joint with LMS and its first meeting to be held virtually. Pablo Merino, the Cathodic Protection Technical Authority at CLH presented “A New CP Approach on Non-Isolated and Aged Pipelines: A Case Study”.
He described the case of an aged pipeline with an oversaturated CP System not achieving the full protection criteria. An in-line corrosion inspection revealed several corrosion features and a severely degraded coating system (in some locations almost completely gone). The pipeline in question was a 34 km, 60 + year old, 10” bitumen enamel coated pipe running parallel, in the same right of way, with six other pipelines all bonded together, one of which was bare. Various options were considered to remedy the under protected areas, namely (a) electrical isolation, (b) upgrade of the existing CP system, (c) coating rehabilitation, and (d) change CP criteria for a less restrictive one. Pablo discussed several options, (a) and (b) were not feasible, and for (c), the CP system had already been upgraded with twenty impressed current groundbed installations having a total output of 560 amperes, thus further upgrading was not feasible. Option (d) to re-classify the pipelines scheme as a “Complex Structure” under standard BS EN 14505, was considered as possible.
The new strategy is to confirm which BS EN 14505 “alternative methods of verification” suits the pipeline integrity, re-balance the existing CP system based on the External Corrosion Monitoring System (ECMS) and the adopted BS EN 14505 alternative method of verification (CP current optimisation).
Hence, the work currently in progress is to re-classify the pipeline scheme as “Complex Structure” as per BS EN 14505, and implement an ECMS using buried electrical resistance probes at strategic locations to verify that the reduction of the corrosion rate suits the pipeline integrity.
Numerous questions were answered by Pablo. A vote of thanks was given by Ben Moorhouse and he was presented virtually with a London Branch pen (and sent it by post).
The virtual TEAMS meeting was considered a great success with 40 attendees from around the UK. The benefit of the virtual presentation is that it can be followed by anyone and does not require a visit to central London. However, the networking with peers is sadly missing. This presentation can be found at https://www.icorr.org/london-branch-a-new-cp-approach-on-non-isolated-and-aged-pipelines/
The November meeting was devoted to the YEP Case Study presentations, as with other ICorr events this year, this was held online via TEAMS. This year there were 7 teams, who reported on their solutions to a case study about an onshore titanium pipe corrosion failure.
Several leaks had been found in titanium piping in a glycol desalination plant which required action to be taken. In particular, the teams were asked several questions on this, including, what further information was needed and discuss in detail any results or data provided, propose credible root causes for the defects and to described possible failure scenarios. They were also asked to consider how they would carry out a corrosion risk assessment, what mitigation option(s) should be implemented, and to propose alternative materials of construction for replacement parts.
After all the teams had presented their solutions to the problem, the judges retired to decide on the winners, who would receive an all-paid trip to NACE Expo, Salt Lake City, in 2021, curtsey of BP, the sponsors of the YEP programme. Team 4, mentored by Tasos Kostrivas (Mott MacDonald) comprising, Ryan Cobbs (Mott MacDonald), Izabela Gajewska (Intertek), Harry Wright (Element), Praveena Nkumaran (Worley Parsons), and Vincent Lemoine (Saipem), were declared the winners.
Ryan Cobbs, Civil Engineer
Praveena Nanthakumaran, Mechanical Engineer
Izabela Gajewska , Corrosion Engineer
Vincent Lemoine , Welding Engineer
Harry Wright , Corrosion Engineer
Tasos Kostrivas , Mentor
In addition, PIH Ltd are sponsoring one place on a NACE Leadership course to be held in Houston in September 2021. Each of the YEP students have been asked to fill-in a questionnaire which will be assessed by all the team mentors, to decide on the recipient.
All the presentations are now on the Institute website (https://www.icorr.org/yep-programme-case-study-presentations/), and it is intended to have a more detailed report in the next issue of Corrosion Management.
Steve Paterson commented after the event, “I thoroughly enjoyed the case study evening. I thought the quality of the analysis and presentation of the case study by each team was excellent. As I re-examined this failure over the course of preparing the case study, I realised that the original failure investigation could have been more detailed and would have benefited enormously from the work done by any one of the YEP teams involved in the case study task. It is ironic that there continues to be corrosion issues in the new desalination unit. Please pass on my compliments to all the YEP teams for a job well done and my congratulations to the winning team. There is some real talent in the pipeline!”
Details of future branch events can be found on te diary page at the back of this magazine, and on the events page of the ICorr website.
For the 2020-21 session, the branch is pleased to welcome Dr Muhammad Ejaz PhD, CEng FICorr, FIMMM as its new Chair, together with a very strong and diverse branch committee, whose details can be found at, https://www.icorr.org/aberdeen/
Aberdeen started its new session on 24 September with record attendance of 311 for its annual joint ICorr/TWI event with a webinar on “High Tensile Steel Bolts and Nuts – Hydrogen Embrittlement and Failure in Corrosive Environments” with speaker Alan Denney of AKD Materials Consulting Ltd. This very well-presented talk took a topical view of the long-standing issue of hydrogen embrittlement of high tensile fasteners, and the dramatic failures which can occur as a consequence. Alan started with the threaded components used as shear connectors for the earthquake resistance on the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, and the causes of these failures. The talk then referred back to the historical problems with high tensile bolts caused by hydrogen embrittlement due to manufacture, and recent problems with high tensile bolts in building structures in London. To close the talk Alan brought us up to date with the modern offshore environment with issues due to environmental corrosion in offshore wind turbine structures, and work in Germany to define and limit the conditions for its occurrence, and potential prevention or mitigation measures.
The three conditions for Hydrogen Embrittlement.
Following on from its well-received April/July events, ICorr Aberdeen /MCF jointly ran a new series of ‘Lunch and Learns’ between 5 and 9 October. Opening the week was a fascinating talk by Simon J. Sparke – International Well Integrity Ltd, on the “History of well integrity and its business impacts to the Oil and Gas industry”. Graham Greenwood Sole – Corrocoat, then described their advanced glass flake technologies and S/T aerosol type solutions for marine corrosion protection. Gary Whyman – Emerson Automation, followed with the question, “What is proactive maintenance, and how does it differ from preventive and predictive maintenance? Moving onto Renewables, Neil Gallon – Rosen UK, considered Integrity management of hydrogen transportation pipelines and to close the week, Svenn Magne Wigen – Force Technology Norway, discussed subsea survey utilisation of highly sensitive field gradient sensors for optimisation of CP life extension.
Interpretation of Field Gradient Data. FORCE TECHNOLOGY Norway AS.
On 15 October, the branch welcomed Oceaneering for a ‘virtual’ Industrial visit, hosted by Ian Drummond (Regional Business Development Manager – Europe & Africa) on the theme, “Integrity Management and Digital Solutions: Fly, Swim or Crawl?”
Oceaneering is a global provider of engineered services and products, primarily to the offshore energy industry. From remote inspection to capturing and managing data more effectively, Oceaneering offers a range of integrity solutions that optimise inspection and maintenance regimes to deliver significant time and cost savings.
SME technical presentations of three key business areas, with the focus on techniques to identify and predict external corrosion, were given together with simulations of these technologies.
Lisa McCrory – Product Manager – Integrity, presented Inform InspectTM
Inform InspectTM is an intuitive and flexible digital asset inspection tool that enables users to plan, schedule, execute and review inspection work scopes in real time, significantly reducing end to end inspection times. It allows international co-operation between technicians and subject matter experts. It is cloud based tool that allows remote working using tablets at site, through which the technician can execute the inspection and send back the work pack for review and report generation. Targeted rejection is sent back to the technician and as threshold alerts are also in the system, notification is given that results have crossed over pre-set alarm levels such as MAWT (min. allowable wall thickness for piping or vessel) or NOM. (nominal value of material schedule). They can choose whether to accept or reject the results or send back for review. All data is stored in a secure global portal and the system also has built in training modules through the web portal. Inform InspectTM is field proven and connects seamlessly with integrity and maintenance management systems to deliver credible up to date inspection data. Multi-method inspections of visual, electromagnetic, ultrasonic and radiographic can all be managed through questionnaire templates that are customised through client / project input.
Illustration of Oceaneering Inform Inspect.TM.
Jim McNab – Non-Destructive Testing SME, presented the Trip Avoidance X-Ray Inspection System (TAXI™)
It’s fair to say, the industry as a whole respects conventional radiography as a trusted, very reliable, easily interpreted method with a high PoD even for the smallest flaws like corrosion pits, however, it’s associated with safety issues, it’s time consuming, disruptive and has a limited deliverable format i.e. a single conventional film only a few people get to see.
TAXI™ has managed to largely address all of these ‘negatives’ especially for CUI, where the majority of leaks occur in smaller than 4” OD pipes, with the added bonus of having very limited effects on nucleonic level control instrumentation.
Pressure plant equipment sometimes has nucleonic level control instrumentation which monitors the fluid levels in vessels. Gamma rays from a normal source used in NDT on pipes is sensed by the nucleonics. The separator misinterprets the signal thinking the vessel has evacuated its fluids inventory. To avoid these ‘false alarms’, conventional radiography is carried out by temporarily isolating the equipment, running the plant ‘blind’ risking unmonitored process operational issues, or deferring to plant shutdown to allow liquidation of radiography workscopes.
For the UK continental shelf, data shows that plant failure and unplanned shutdowns account for nearly 20% of production losses, approx. 100 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2019.
TAXI™ delivers pulsed X-radiation, which has little effect on nucleonic instrumentation while giving high quality digital x-ray images in 8 seconds. 20-25 exposures can be performed per shift, up to 4 times more than standard radiation techniques – allowing uninterrupted operation and production. Control room liaison is still critical, but there has been new confidence with this system. It uses digital detection media which absorb radiation quicker (compared to conventional film) and has a larger exposure latitude/dynamic range. There is therefore no need to use multiple exposure on thicker pipes, or on pipes filled with denser liquids and sediment. Extensive verification testing of the system was carried out to ensure it worked in a range of conditions and settings.
Digital radiographs demonstrating exposure latitude/dynamic range of the system were shown of thick wall double insulated pipe filled with fluid and internal sediment, clearly visible. A badly corroded pipe with external corrosion scab radiograph revealed unexpectedly that cracks were in the scab rather than the pipe wall. X-rays of Swagelok™ fittings had such detail that small faults could be determined in the assembly of fittings to the pipes.
Illustration of Oceaneering TAXI™ X-Ray Set.
Other key benefits of the system were the small area of radiation used, the reduced radiation exposure time, and use of no radioactive materials which require ‘dangerous goods’ classification.
Finally, Iain Jarvie – Senior Consultant Engineer, presented the Vibration Induced Fatigue Digital Twin technology.
According to UK HSE data, from 1998 to 2015 there were 303 fatigue related hydrocarbon releases in the UK sector, of which 125 could have led to a major incident. Could these have been prevented?
Vibration and the resulting stress cycles, due to fluid flow, can cause fatigue cracks. The cyclic stress amplitudes that can cause a crack can be more than 10 times lower than the yield stress of the material. These cracks propagate through the material leading to loss of containment and hydrocarbon release.
The Energy Institute ‘Guidelines for the avoidance of vibration induced fatigue in process pipework’ are used throughout industry to manage this problem. The method relies on a risk based approach with regular visits to the plant by specialist engineers. The guidelines have reduced the number of failures, however HSE data shows that vibration induced fatigue is still a significant problem for the oil and gas industry.
Oceaneering have developed new ways to tackle this problem, including:
A vibration measurement tablet that can be used by operator personnel, which automatically uploads data to the cloud for onshore assessment;
A helmet camera system that provides a live 2-way audio and video feed from the asset, allowing operator personnel to assess a problem with onshore specialist support; and
Pipework Digital twin Technology
The digital twin is fed by live sensor data and uses a library of pre-solved model solutions to find the best fitting representation of the pipework. Machine learning algorithms are then used to interrogate live measurement data and extract the force spectra acting on the pipework, allowing a real time fatigue damage assessment and real time root cause analysis. This technology has been used extensively in the aircraft industry. Its application in oil and gas has the potential to reduce or eliminate vibration related fatigue failures. Corrosion can reduce fatigue strength by 35%, the digital twin technology allows this effect to be included and quantified. The live remote monitoring and fatigue assessment provided by the digital twin reduces/eliminates the need for engineer visits, with issues being identified and mitigated using onshore resources.
An extensive Q&A Session chaired by Ian Drummond closed this very successful Event.
The full recording of this event is available for viewing at: https://www.oceaneering.com/tradeshows/icorr-a-virtual-industrial-visit/
Aberdeen Branch maintain an extensive database of past presentations covering all areas of corrosion management. Copies of these can be found at: https://www.icorr.org/aberdeen/ and a photo gallery at: https://sites.google.com/site/icorrabz/event-gallery. The branch also has a new You Tube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNW-HoZVEMA79-4Y6k5E0ow/featured
Full details of upcoming events may be found on the main ICorr Website https://www.icorr.org/events/list/ or by contacting: ICorrABZ@gmail.com
The 61st Corrosion Science Symposium (CSS) was held online this year via Zoom between the 14th and 16th September. The CSS has been held annually since its launch in 1960 by Prof. L.L. Shreir, and is an ideal opportunity for students and younger researchers in corrosion science from across Europe to congregate, discuss their work, share ideas and, above all enjoy themselves in a stimulating/friendly environment. This year there were 17 oral presentations and the UR Evans award plenary talk.
Some highlights of the symposium included the talk by Mariana Folena (University of Leeds) who gave an interesting overview of her work studying rapid screen techniques for thiols as volatile corrosion inhibitors in real time monitoring carbon dioxide top-of-line corrosion. To date, no studies have been conducted to understand the efficiency of smaller thiol chains, nor the extent to which thiols partition into the condensate phase of the system. Mariana presented two new techniques to improve the understanding of the mechanism of volatile corrosion inhibitors; a biochemical method to quantify sulphydryl groups, and a miniature electrode cell configuration for real time corrosion monitoring and quantification of inhibitor adsorption kinetics. The new assay is rapid, cheap and can monitor the extent to which thiol-based chemistries partition into the condensate.
David Ruis-Izuriaga (University of Manchester) reported on his studies using near ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (NAP-XPS) to gain insights into sweet (carbon dioxide) corrosion mechanisms. Specifically, the NAP-XPS has been utilised to study in situ the interaction of carbon dioxide and water with an iron substrate.
Anastasija Lazareva (University of Leeds) gave a good overview into recent new insights into the initiation and propagation of localised corrosion of X65 pipeline steel in sweet corrosion in the presence of an evolving iron carbonate layer. Anastasija found that localised corrosion initiation takes place at the early stages of iron carbonate evolution and propagates further when full coverage of the carbonate surface is achieved.
The UR Evans award plenary talk was given by Prof Robert Cottis from the University of Manchester. The UR Evans Award is the Institute’s premier scientific award and is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding contributions to corrosion science and engineering. The award is in the form of an engraved sword and is presented at the annual Corrosion Science Symposium. The form of the Award symbolises the fight in which we are all engaged. Prof Cottis gave a detailed personal reflection of electrochemical noise – what is it and what it can tell us. He reviewed its history to study corrosion over the past 50 years, and highlighted that it still remains unclear whether there are generic interpretation methods that can provide useful information. The plenary elegantly introduced the various measurement methods of the technique, considered some of the source of noise, including the noise due to individual elementary reactions, pitting corrosion, bubble evolution, and turbulent flow. From these theoretical approaches the interpretation of the electrochemical noise was developed. Prof Cottis concluded by discussing the broad range of heuristic methods that have been developed and commented on their applicability.
The Shreir Prize is awarded to the best oral presentation by a registered student at the CSS. This year the prize was won by Christos Kousis (Swansea University) for his talk entitled ‘An investigation of the effect of chloride ion concentration on the localised corrosion of the E717 Mg alloy’. Christos gave an insightful talk on using an in situ scanning vibrating electrode technique, coupled with time-lapse imaging, to study E717 Mg corrosion behaviour. The intensity of the localised anodes is highly dependent on the chloride ion concentration, where higher anodic current density values are observed with increasing chloride ion concentration. In addition, volumetrically-determined hydrogen evolution rate is also shown to increase with increasing chloride concentration. Christos was able to utilise his imaging methods to effectively highlight the underlying mechanistic processes with good clarity.
The 62nd CSS will be a joint meeting with Advances in Corrosion Protection by Organic Coatings to be held in Cambridge (Christs’ College) between the 5th and 9th September 2021. Further details on registration and abstract submission will be announced shortly.
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