Aberdeen events coming up in October and November 2022 include:
25/10/2022 – Dene Halkyard (Flexitallic) will present Flange Face Corrosion in Seawater and Hydrocarbon Environments related to Gasket Material Selection. ICorr Aberdeen Technical Event (Zoom Mtg) Start 18:00: Finish at 19:30.
16/11/2022 – Prafull Sharma (CorrosionRADAR) will talk on The Era of Remote Corrosion Monitoring. Joint ICorr Aberdeen Technical Event (Zoom Mtg) with Joint Meeting with IOM3/MIS. Start 18:00: Finish at 19:30.
24/11/2022 – YEP 2022 Final Presentation – Case Study Competition. Palm Court Hotel, 81 Seafield Rd, Aberdeen AB15 7YX. Start 16:00: Finish at 20:00.
ICorr HQ will notify all ICorr Members shortly of Event Details / Registration Details.
To join the Aberdeen Branch Mailing List, please contact: icorrabz@gmail.com
yOn Tuesday 30th August 2022, the Institute of Corrosion Aberdeen Branch held its 2022 Annual Corrosion Forum and was extremely well received. This was a comprehensive whole -day Event of Net-Zero related presentations by a range of industry experts superbly chaired on the day by Dr Olubayo Latinwo and raising nearly £3000 towards ICorr funds for future training programmes.
Presserv Ltd were the Key Sponsor for this event and during the day hosted a demonstration of their products and services, identifying what impact they could have on the energy transition market. Presserv Ltd were also kind enough to arrange the venue (Palm Court Hotel) and also provided catering services throughout the day.
The Event’s key goal was to identify materials, corrosion and asset integrity challenges we face, as we move into the new energy transition era.
ACF outcomes were an extremely useful technical insight for all Conference attendees, companies, duty holders, operators, asset managers and individuals who may wish to transition to greener solutions in the foreseeable future. Rarely are the topics of materials, corrosion and asset integrity the focus of energy transition talk’s and the Institute of Corrosion provided an excellent opportunity to prepare all for the relevant challenges ahead.
ACF Event Chair / ABZ Vice Chair Dr Olubayo Latinwo
Branch Chair and Event Technical Coordinator Hooman Takhtechian
Event Speakers and Extracts from their Talks
The Institute of Corrosion’s Approach to the Energy Transition Landscape
P1 Keynote Speaker, Bill Hedges – ICorr President
Dr Bill Hedges spoke from his combined 34 years’ experience in corrosion science, integrity management and engineering and in the oil & gas industry working for Exxon and BP. He was with BP for 24 years and left in 2020 to form his own consultancy business. His final role was as the Chief Engineer for Materials and Integrity Management. He has spent half of his career working in central engineering functions and half in operational locations in many countries worldwide with specific assignments in London, Houston, Trinidad and Alaska. These assignments have given him practical experience of integrity issues in onshore, offshore, deep-water, tropical, desert and arctic environments.
Bill holds a B.Sc. in chemistry and a Ph.D. in electrochemistry (lithium batteries) from the University of Southampton, UK and spent time as a researcher in the Bioengineering department at Oxford University, UK. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng.), Chartered Chemist (CChem) and a Fellow of both the Institute of Corrosion (FICorr) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). He has held director roles with the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) Foundation and the NACE Europe board. He has published 38 papers and in 2009 was awarded the NACE Fellow honour (FNACE).
The Roles of Corrosion Professionals during Energy TransitionP2
Muhsen Elhaddad – Former NACE Qatar Chair
Muhsen has been working as a Corrosion and Well Integrity Engineer for more than 20 years where he is responsible for designing and implementation of corrosion policies and specifications for upstream, midstream and downstream operations. During his working tenure, Muhsen has contributed a great deal towards advancing the understanding, of transforming companies towards cleaner energies. Muhsen holds a BEng and MSc in material science, engineering and technology, from University of Qatar and is currently pursuing a PhD in electrochemistry, he spoke passionately about the need to have competent and engaging corrosion and materials professionals involved at all levels of the asset cycle from conception of the project to decommissioning.
People are known to be the heart of effective asset integrity management and only people can make effective asset integrity happen with their proactive approach, flexibility and the quick response. They must be knowledgeable, have the right competency, and the authority to act on their knowledge, expertise and experience. They should have the means to collaborate, share and communicate at all levels of the organization and take pride in their profession. This also requires change in mind set and understanding that a job is not for a salary it is a profession that a corrosion professional need to embrace and practice fully.
Material Constraints and safety assessments in conversion of existing natural gas pipelines for hydrogen transport
P3 Frank Cheng – University of Calgary
Dr. Frank Cheng is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Pipeline Engineering at the University of Calgary. Frank is an internationally recognized researcher in Energy Pipeline Technology, specializing in pipeline corrosion and cracking, integrity management, and new energy transport systems. His talk provided technical background about hydrogen embrittlement (HE), detailing unique features of the problem associated with high-pressure gaseous environments and the additional challenges of the conversion of existing “aged” gas pipelines for hydrogen service. These include corrosion and mechanical defects serving as hydrogen traps, pre-strain induced by pipe-soil interaction to increase the HE susceptibility, competitive adsorption of impurity gases with hydrogen gas on steel surface, and preferential accumulation of hydrogen atoms and the resulting cracking at pipeline welds.
Technical gaps were analysed, and recommendations provided for both research community and industry to develop a technical assessment program for the suitability of existing pipelines for hydrogen transport. Hydrogen, as a green and zero-emission fuel, has received wide attention recently. Hydrogen delivery is integral to the entire value chain of hydrogen economy, where pipelines provide an economic and efficient means to transport hydrogen.
Challenges in assessing corrosion resistance of pipeline steels in dense phase CO2
P4 Shravan Kairy – NPL
Dr Shravan Kairy is a Higher Research Scientist at National Physical Laboratory, UK. His current research is focused on understanding the corrosion of pipeline steels in dense phase CO2 and developing a standard test method. In his presentation, Shravan provided a comprehensive overview of the most common experimental methodologies used to assess corrosion of pipeline steels in dense phase CO2. Key factors that influence corrosion of pipeline steels in dense phase CO2 during service and the challenges of incorporating these factors into experimental methodologies were discussed. The current industry understanding of corrosion of pipeline steels in dense phase CO2 and recommendations on future directions was also provided.
Transportation of carbon dioxide (CO2) is essential for the storage of captured anthropogenic CO2 at dedicated locations, such as depleted oilfields. Pipeline transport of dense phase CO2, i.e., in the liquid or supercritical phase, enables cost effective high throughput transport. Understanding the factors controlling corrosion of pipeline steels in the dense phase CO2 environment is necessary for qualifying pipeline materials for service and establishing reliable and cost-effective impurity threshold specifications.
Challenges in Corrosion Protection for offshore wind Foundations
P5 Anthony Setiedi – Wood Thistled
Dr. Setiadi FICorr has a strong track record of delivering technical and project management roles throughout 20 years in the industry and academia. His work has primarily been in the offshore oil and gas industry prior to the transition to offshore wind. He is currently the Chief Consultant at Wood Thilsted where he is responsible for the corrosion protection design for numerous offshore wind developments in the UK, Europe and USA. He argued that a corrosion protection strategy needs to be developed and agreed well in advance, which then needs to be followed through to completion, including input to Operation and Maintenance Strategy to ensure that structural integrity is not compromised throughout design life.
This presentation primarily focussed on monopile foundations and the design considerations that would need to be taken onboard. Monopiles have both internal and external surface needing protection. Much thought must be given to the level of protection needed and consideration of the impact to structural integrity throughout the design life, and how fabrication, transport and installation limitations would affect the corrosion protection design. Coating requirements and different cathodic protection systems (i.e. Galvanic and ICCP) were discussed for the internal and external challenges regarding positioning of the CP system and installation concerns that need to be taken into account offshore during the installation phases.
Challenges for selecting protective coatings for fixed and floating offshore wind industry
P6 Simon Daly – Safinah Group
Simon Daly B.Eng (Hons) is an AMPP-certified Senior Corrosion technologist and a professional member of ICorr with over 30 years’ experience in the protective coatings field and a consultant with Safinah. His talk highlighted how Corrosion issues within existing fixed wind turbine facilities have necessitated coating requirements more extensive than previously foreseen. Different long term performance requirements, couples with increased productivity to meet offshore renewables targets means that coating selection must be very carefully considered especially with the increasing number of Floating structures.
Offshore wind turbine structures are exposed to environments with high salinity, high levels of UV radiation, the presence of cathodic protection and other factors such as tidal influences. As well as the offshore turbines themselves, larger offshore structures such as transformer stations may have more extensive coating requirements including the need for passive fire protection. As the industry transitions to floating structures designs may also have the challenges associated with marine fouling as well as more extensive coating work scopes.
Challenges in Tokamak-type fusion reactor
P7 Joven Lim – UK Atomic Energy Authority
Joven Lim BEng (Hons), DPhil (Oxon), MIMMM, MInstP is a core member of Reactor Chemistry and Materials Research Working Group of GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, an experienced nuclear materials scientist with an engineering background. He gave an overview of the Tokamak-type fusion reactor design, the potential list of coolants can be used and why, and the expected corrosion challenges from the extreme environment in the fusion reactor. The speaker also provided some insights on the criteria used for materials selection, corrosion management & mitigation strategy currently being developed for UK STEP fusion programme that aim to deliver a prototype fusion energy plant, targeting 2040 [https://step.ukaea.uk/].
With the increase of national interest to focus on developing and deploying clean energy and ensuring a good energy mix for the future, Fusion power plant is one of the ideal candidates. Fusion reactors do not generate carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Its major by-product is helium gas. Nuclear fusion reactors do not produce high activity, long-lived nuclear waste. The recent record-breaking 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy demonstrates potential of fusion to be part of the future energy mix at world-leading Joint European Torus facility, a Tokamak-type fusion reactor design, in Oxford, UK [https://www.euro-fusion.org/news/2022/european-researchers-achieve-fusion-energy-record/].
Corrosion challenges and related opportunities in Arduous next generation low carbon energy systems: Solar and Nuclear Energy Context
P8 Frederick Pessu – University of Leeds
Dr Frederick Pessu is Lecturer in Corrosion, and is based Institute of Functional Surfaces, University of Leeds. He holds a B.Eng degree in chemical engineering, MSc. (Eng) and PhD in Corrosion Engineering and has been working in the areas of corrosion science and engineering since 2009. His research interests have been focused on fundamental understanding and characterisation of material performance in arduous corrosion systems, including renewable and low carbon energy production systems that support energy de-carbonisation, e.g. 1. Molten salts corrosion in Concentrated Solar Power Generation Plants (CSP) and Molten Salt Reactors (MSR). 2. Pitting and overall corrosion in CO2/H2S – containing energy systems; including high scaling geothermal systems.
His presentation highlighted the corrosion challenges in the new frontier of low carbon and renewable energy generation; Solar and nuclear energy sources have shown the greatest promise in our efforts to meet global climate change target. Electricity generation from solar and nuclear irradiation can be achieved using concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies and Gen IV molten salt nuclear reactors (MSR).
Selection of coating material in oil and gas industries and use of advanced coating processes for corrosion protection in present industrial scenario.
P9 Urvesh Vala – Chiyoda Ltd India
Dr Urvesh Vala is presently working as Head, Material Engineering & Technology, L&T Chiyoda LTD. India.
Cross country pipelines and plant piping play vital role for fluid, gas and water transportation which is mainly underground and protective coating with cathodic protection provides more than 25 years of corrosion protection. Protective coatings are the prime method being used globally considering the feasibility, cost and expected service life for onshore and offshore equipment and structures. Coating such as Fusion bonded epoxy, 3-layer polyethylene, polypropylene, modified epoxy, polyurethane, cold applied bituminous, polyethylene tape is most widely used coating for underground piping. Urvesh highlighted in his talk the prime factors for coating system selection – Type of material to be protected / Service temperature / Type of service i.e. open to atmosphere, under insulation, internal/immersion, buried, under fireproofing / Feasibility for maintenance of coating / Expected life.
The use of magnetic probe couple to augment existing equipment and technology.
P10 Jonathan Francis – Trac Energy
Jonathan Francis BSc. (NDT) is a practically minded individual with 3 decades of experience in non-destructive testing within the oil and gas industry with formal qualifications in 5 core NDT methods, Ultrasonics, Radiography, Eddy Current, Magnetic particle and Dye penetrant inspection. Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in NDT and is in his fourth year of a part-time PHD researching the reliability of manual ultrasonic testing.
Despite the advances and proven reliability of automated ultrasonics (AUT) Manual ultrasonic testing (MUT) is still widely relied upon in industry and has the inherent capability to detect wall loss and give quantifiable data on thickness of components with the data used to ensure plant and equipment can continue to run safely, but the current body of literature shows a host of human factors that can affect MUT performance. The use of a magnetic probe coupler (MPC) is proposed that will aid the task and the inspector in carrying out a reliable MUT inspection. It will do this by ensuring that probe coupling is maintained to the Carbon Steel surface when working in a variety of positions while improving the tactility of scanning a component. It will greatly aid the monitoring of known areas of wall loss by ensuring that the probe is coupled consistently and accurately in the same position.
The Institute of Corrosion Aberdeen Branch gratefully acknowledges the support of all participants and the ICorr HQ Admin Team. Event photos may viewed at https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ajj3m1kM8SgPrj_TTl_bylOPF1LB?e=EfsRMM
We are very pleased to announce ICORR Aberdeen’s 2022 Annual Corrosion Forum (ACF) will be held on Tuesday 30th August 2022. Please note that this year’s topic is focused on Energy Transition and Presserv Ltd https://presserv.com/uk/ are the kind sponsor of this key event. We are also proud to announce a special guest, Bill Hedges, President of the Institute of Corrosion as Keynote Speaker, (please see full day programme attached for you). For the first time, the annual corrosion forum will be a HYBRID event and can be attended in person or virtually via a Zoom.
The venue for those wishing to attend in person will be local to Aberdeen, UK and will be communicated in due course. There will be an early bird discount for those who register before* 1st August 2022. There will also be a discount for attendees who are Members of ICorr. Simply supply your membership number with your application to be eligible.
Pricing details are summarised below:
Attendance Type
Regular Pricing
ACF Early Bird*/
ICorr Member
In Person
£149.99+VAT
£74.99+ VAT
(Discount Offer)
Virtual
£74.99 + VAT
£39.99 + VAT
(Discount Offer)
All proceeds will support the continued work of ICorr as a leading authority on Corrosion and provider of Corrosion Prevention resources.
If you would like to attend this event, please complete Registration form with payment and return it to admin@icorr.org. Please note that spaces to attend this event in person are strictly limited and will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.
We trust this event information is helpful. We look forward to your attendance.
The branch held a joint technical meeting with TWI Scottish Branch on 28th September where the speaker, Matthew Beatty from Sonomatic Ltd. discussed “In-service ultrasonic tank floor inspections”.
As described below, Sonomatic have developed an advanced system of robotic instrumentation and associated test procedures which can be used to inspect storage tanks while still in service. The instrumentation can easily navigate tank floors and using ultrasonic techniques (UT), measure the remaining through floor plate thickness, detecting both product side and soil side corrosion. From this, the remaining useful life of the tank can be determined by comparing this with the minimum containment thickness criteria for the vessel.
Desludging of tanks is performed during the measurement process as it is essential that the robot has a clean surface to make the measurement, and obtain good and reliable data. This is by done by either pumping sludge away within the tank, or pumping sludge out of tanks into containers for recycling or filtering and return. The inspection process can extend to survey tank shell walls and roof, annular plates and shell to floor welds using ultrasonics techniques.
Two main ultrasonics techniques are commonly used; (1) Short-range ultrasonics (SRUT) for features such as,
• Tank floor annular plate testing
• Testing concrete coated interfaces
• Testing under pipe supports
• Tank dyke piping interfaces
• Under vessel supports
and (2), Multiplexed phased array UT (PAUT) for the shell to annular plate weld inspection, and toassess the condition of the internal and external weld (for cracking particularly).
Acoustic emission (AE) can be used to scan the floor for active corrosion prior putting the robot into the tank.
The robots deployed for the inspection are dependent on the tank media content and the accessibility. A hydraulic driven robot is used for heavy to light hydrocarbons and a mini ROV swimmer is used mainly in water tanks. Survey robots are fitted with hydraulic pumps and scrappers to remove sludge and sediment and clean the surface ready for ultrasonic work. All robots have safety systems and monitor critical items such as oxygen and nitrogen pressure through the umbilical and can automatically shut down power at alert safety levels.
For inspections, the robot is lowered through a deployment manway using a tripod and winch system to the tank bottom and connected back to the control room through a tailored sealed temporary manway cover. Finally, the tank is purged and pressurised.
The ultrasonic probes used have a range of diameters from 8mm up to 300mm total coverage and are typically arranged in an array of around 30 probes which speeds up the scanning process and makes data more reliable.
A case study was presented of a detailed in-service inspection of an 80 metre diameter tank with known corrosion. Acoustic emission was used first to check 100% of the tank for ongoing corrosion signs. With the robot deployed the sludge was displaced by suction pump and a rubber scraper to remove surface sludge.This inspection used a total of 521 scans, representing 5% coverage of tank base. The sampling methods and statistical analysis allow for limited coverage inspection so there is no need to inspect 100% of features. With the in-built ultrasonics, in this instance which used 8 transducers with amplitude variation across each transducer, the min thickness found was 4.8mm compared with the nominal thickness of 7mm, which gave an estimated remaining life of 2 years before an out of service inspection was required. After shutdown 3 years later, the floor thickness was confirmed to be 2.20 mm versus a predicted 2.53mm from in-service inspection, a <5% difference between the two methodologies which is considered an accurate and successful prediction compared with manually performed UT readings.
The accuracy of the predictive system using the in-service data illustrated that robotic inspection of the tank floor is a viable alternative to costly shutdown and out-of-service inspection.
The branch October meeting featured an interesting online talk from Professor Y. Frank Cheng. University of Calgary (UoC), entitled “Internal corrosion of pipelines: mechanisms, modelling and management”.
Internal corrosion of pipelines is a complex phenomenon, and the complexity arises from the fact that multiple chemical and electrochemical reactions occur simultaneously with numerous interrelated factors affecting the corrosion processes. A fundamental understanding of the phenomenon is essential to modelling, prediction and management of the corrosion processes, providing recommendations to industry for improved pipeline integrity management.
Currently, pipelines for oil and natural gas are the conduit for around 55% of energy transport and, despite the rise of renewables and net-zero targets, they will still be utilised for a similar amount of energy transportation when H2, CO2 and biogas gain in popularity. For oil and gas transport, the upstream ‘gathering’ pipelines which run from production to the upstream processing plants are the subject of interest here. Of course, the corrosion issues in different sectors of the pipeline system can be very different due to the product being carried and the internal environment. In upstream gathering lines within Alberta in 2019, 46% of the corrosion issues were deemed to be due to internal corrosion alone.
Multiple factors affect the corrosion process, including fluid chemistry, operating conditions and pipe geometry. To deal with the complex issues it is important that computer models take into consideration each of these factors, and study each of the key parameters, reaction chemistry, fluid hydrodynamics and configuration, so as to produce a workable model which will realistically predict the corrosion outcome.
The UoC initially developed a thermodynamic model to determine the electrochemical anodic and cathodic reactions occurring during internal corrosion of pipelines under given conditions, and the chemical reactions (for instance CO2) occurring during electrochemical cathodic (evolution of gas) and anodic reactions (at the steel oxidation). The internal corrosion involves the formation of iron carbonate scale on the surface which changes the corrosion rate. When H2S is also introduced there are competing reactions with CO2, which further complicate the outcome.
For the chemical reactions they derived the reaction equilibrium constants and for the electrochemical reactions calculated the standard electrode potentials by Gibbs free energy and determined partial reaction potentials by the Nernst equation.
Fluid hydrodynamics plays a critical role in influencing corrosion, so studies were conducted by fitting electrodes flush with the inside pipe walls at straight and angled positions to measure corrosion rate with flow and with impingement angle to the pipe wall. Other effects that were incorporated in the flow model were the inhibitive effect of the hydrocarbon oil phase and the erosive effect of inorganic sand and solids.
Another consideration for UoC modelling was the organic acid that is always part of the fluid in upstream hydrocarbon pipelines and which will attack the iron carbonate film which readily forms on the inner walls of the pipe. The scale builds faster with higher CO2 and temperature but, when the FeCO3 scale is broken locally at a defect, this leads to pitting corrosion under the scale and can lead to accelerated attack and leaks in pipeline walls. Pitting corrosion also occurs under sand layers which settle on the pipe floor from the high upstream sand concentration in the oil sand.
The final and possibly greatest issue in oil pipeline corrosion was determined as internal microbial corrosion which is believed to be responsible for ~ 40% of all internal corrosion events in pipelines. Microbial Corrosion occurs under any deposit mixture of petroleum sludge, sands, water microorganisms and corrosion. Internal operating environments encourage growth of the microbial population products. However, in the case of gas pipelines a thin layer of water condensate occurs on the chilled wall of the pipe which makes the formation of biofilms difficult and the deposit of corrosion films more favourable, so there is a competition between the two effects.
Several predictive corrosion models have been developed from the experimental studies of parameters and mathematical relationships, and these UoC models can assist in identifying critical corrosion locations, especially pitting and erosive corrosion on a long-distance pipeline, then predict the pitting corrosion rate and pitting growth rate, however corrosion mitigation and control by operators should not rely on inhibitors and biocides as they are not a totally satisfactory solution and periodic pigging is still required as main method of control in removing and reducing deposits and sludge.
This very comprehensive presentation generated much interest from the audience and many questions that were expertly responded to by the author.
Slides of technical papers for Aberdeen branch events, along with their respective Q&A’s can be found at, https://sites.google.com/site/icorrabz/ and also at Aberdeen Branch – Institute of Corrosion (icorr.org) under Local Technical Programme. A library of event recordings may also be found at:
The Aberdeen Branch has several significant Events scheduled for later in the Summer and would particularly like to draw your attention to its Annual Corrosion Forum (ACF) scheduled fo 24th August. This year event is arranged to be held in TRAC Oil and Gas premises close to Aberdeen Airport.
This will be the first ICorr event in more than a year that we are going to conduct in person. The theme for the ACF this year is External Corrosion Management. The programme consists of 8 presentations to be presented by speakers from various companies, all very active in the integrity management field. Practical demonstrations in the TRAC workshops will follow in the afternoon.
Those interested in joining this Event should register your interest with ICorr HQ using the attached Form.
This event is going to be conducted in an outdoor area with Catering Marquee (with restricted access into the main building) in order to be able to accommodate the speakers and the attendees with proper social distancing#. #The current COVID precautions mentioned in the attached agenda, may be varied due to easing or tightening of government recommendations or TRAC instructions.
During March, the branch welcomed Dr George Sergi R&D Technical Director at Vector Corrosion Technologies, which, provides corrosion mitigation techniques for the civil engineering and construction industries. He is the author of several international patents for corrosion protection of steel reinforcement and these were discussed in a talk entitled “Galvanic Corrosion / CP Control of Reinforced Concrete; Lessons learnt from 20 years of Site Trials”.
Sacrificial anodes have been used in reinforced concrete structures for up to 20 years. These prototype anodes, designed for a 10-year life, have continued to deliver a reduced but significant current, complying with presently accepted CP criteria. However, there are still issues with patch repair of concrete with the condition of the re-bars not being fully understood, and corrosion re-occurring at the periphery of the repairs termed ‘ring effects’. Studying long term installed conventional sacrificial anodes and identifying the issues, has led to the development of a new Fusion™Anode, which seems to solve the issue of recurring corrosion
at repairs.
In order to prevent the initiation of corrosion in a chloride contaminated environment, the current density needs to be 0.4 to 2 mA/m2, much lower than the amount necessary to stop on-going corrosion activity which is 2 – 20 mA/m2.The zinc anodes used for this new technology are encased in a high porosity mortar (to accommodate migration of corrosion products), and also saturated with lithium hydroxide.
Site trials on a bridge in Leicester 20 years ago involved the removal of concrete to reveal the re-bar area, and attachment of anode discs at the peripheral areas of the patch, but, rather than wiring to the rebar, the anodes were wired back to a junction box wired to the steel reinforcement, which meant the anodes could be turned off and on, current could be measured, and the polarisation could be monitored. The zinc consumption could also be monitored and calculated from the Faraday Equation.
Monitoring showed that the cumulative charge from the anodes is linear w.r.t. time for first 5 years then the charge started to fall, perhaps due to the saturation of the Li hydroxide mortar. Tests showed that by disconnecting the anode for 24 hrs then reconnecting, the mean ‘instant on’ current could be established for the anodes within 5secs of reconnection. This represents the power which remains within the anodes – which was 1-1.5mA. After 14 days the current dropped to 0.5mA; this coincided
with LiOH saturation witnessed in the sections.
Looking at the current density (CD) over the 20 years and plotting on a log scale it was seen that the decline of CD was actually exponential. From this study, an ‘ageing factor’ could be determined as to how quickly the protective current halved; this was ~7 years, it then halved again after 14. The study of many other sites enabled ageing factors from sites to be compared, and by reducing the anode spacing by ~1/2 the ageing factor achieved could almost be doubled.It was concluded that the service life of existing standard galvanic anodes used in concrete repair is expected to be between 15 years and 30 years.
As a result of these long-term studies of standard galvanic disc anodes, the New Fusion™ Technology was further developed to have an anode with two stage protection using a battery which first delivers impressed current to arrest corrosion and passivate the steel and then a galvanic anode using a small ’cathodic prevention’ current to maintain the passive state for the remaining life expectancy.This product is an ICCP element and galvanic element with electronics, encased in a stainless steel can and surrounded by alkaline mortar. In laboratory tests, the installed anodes were switched on and off in the ICCP stage to check the polarisation level and the effect of wetting the slab, seen as an increase in the current density. Similar confirmations can be obtained during the galvanic protection phase. Site tests were also conducted to optimise and monitor the spacing, current levels and configuration of the anodes.
From the development work it was established that the key factors were:
An initial charge at the top end of CP current densities that can arrest corrosion of steel.
The level of applied charge to achieve corrosion arrest depends on the corrosivity of the concrete environment and the level of applied current density.
Confirmation that passivation of steel can be maintained long-term with galvanic anodes.
During polarisation of re-bar in concrete it was witnessed that the chloride ions started to move away from the steel and hydroxyl ions are produced at the steel. This led to a reduced Cl_/ OH_ ratio and a reduced corrosion risk with high alkaline levels at the steel interface and low chloride, increasing with distance from the steel. It was also determined that with higher current densities such as can be produced by impressed current technology, highly alkaline areas, above that of base concrete alkaline levels, can be created at the steel which contributes to reversing the corrosion process. Lab tests using between 1% and 3% chloride showed that it took longer to passivate the steel the more residual chloride in the mix at a current density = 30mA / m2 to the steel reinforcement. By extending the experiments, the charge required to passivate the steel
and arrest corrosion at various chloride levels was established.
In summary, George highlighted the benefits from higher levels of current possible by ICCP in the initial years of installation in order to passivate the steel and create more favourable alkaline conditions at the reinforcement for forward protection by GACP.
Again, due to COVID restrictions, the annual joint conference with the Marine Corrosion Forum (MCF) was reformatted as a lunchtime webinar week, held with great success between 26-30 April 2021. Attendances averaged 77 per day and exceeded all expectations, which suggests that the way forward will most definitely be that of blended learning, possibly with live streaming of ‘face to face’ events to our international audience (ICorr itself having nearly 600 overseas members}.
Day 1 featured, Ray Sivarajan, Senior Integrity Engineer and Bill Hedges. Corrosion & Integrity Management Consultant for ICR – OMNI, presenting their “Novel integrity operating system” which uses machine learning to give integrity engineers a continuous and holistic understanding of their business assets in real time. Organisations today face increasing challenges in the changing geopolitical and industry dynamics, which can have huge impacts on the overall success of the business. Constraints such as resource and experience shortages make it ever more difficult for organisations to achieve the efficiency levels required to maintain profitability, whilst maintaining safety and environmental levels. The software boasts built-in automation between modules, workflow tracking and notifications – a first of its kind for integrity software solutions taking visibility and control of integrity activities to a new level. Each module can be used alone to integrate with existing integrity systems, or seamlessly used together as a complete solution – to support organisations in their efforts of digitising their full integrity lifecycle. Further information is available at, https://icr-world.com/omni
Day 2 saw Michael Smith, Senior Engineer Data Scientist with ROSEN UK discuss “Virtual in-line inspection for corrosion management in un-piggable pipelines”. Over the past 30 years, vast amounts of ILI data have been collected all around the world. Although pipelines are diverse in their characteristics, many share similar risk profiles for common pipeline threats such as external and internal corrosion. This has led the industry naturally towards machine learning as a complementary corrosion monitoring solution for pipelines that cannot be inspected using ILI. The results of a “Virtual ILI” create clear justification for planning actual inspections or maintenance in challenging pipelines and for a given uninspected pipeline, it is possible to now source data for similar inspected pipelines and use machine learning algorithms to generate predictive models.
Day 3 profiled Ross Hubble, Applications Engineer with COMSOL, who gave a very modern insight into “Modelling Corrosion and Corrosion Protection”, and discussed some of the benefits of corrosion modelling and what kind of simulations can be performed, starting out with a brief introduction to corrosion simulations and how the theory can be applied to a simulation in the proprietary Multiphysics® software. After the introduction, several modelling examples within the corrosion and corrosion protection field were presented. Modelling allows engineers and scientists to investigate these processes and gain a better understanding of the extent to which corrosion could occur over the lifetime of a structure, and implement preventative measures to inhibit this.
Day 4 had Hamed Habibi, Lead Engineer with Spier Hunter, deliver a most interesting presentation on “Developments in remote magnetic monitoring of carbon steel pipelines to locate and measure abnormal stress”, highlighting recent developments in an emerging non-intrusive sensing technique developed to detect localised abnormal pipe wall stress, such as corrosion and metallurgical defects by mapping variations in the earth’s magnetic field around pipelines. This presentation explored how measurements of remote magnetic field can be applied to define the location of defects in operational pipelines, quantify the associated abnormal stress, report the position of girth welds and to concurrently report a 3-dimensional map of the pipeline route.
Day 5 concluded with Daniel Sandana, Principal Engineer of ROSEN UK, presenting “Addressing the risk of Hydrogen-Induced Stress Cracking on Pipelines”.The role that hydrogen could play in the transition to low-carbon economy has refuelled the emphasis on hydrogen-related cracking mechanisms, and how these could affect the integrity of the energy infrastructure. Hydrogen-cracking mechanisms can nonetheless occur on our existing pipelines, when the effect of CP or H2S is considered. Such mechanisms will actually occur at a greater scale than what would be considered when looking at the sole effect of gaseous hydrogen. The purpose here was to get a better understanding of the problem of HISC due to CP on materials, used onshore and subsea, and how to address it.
Dr Yunnan Gao (Aberdeen’s Digital Strategy and Communications Officer) kindly compiled an all-encompassing Playlist called “ICorr / MCF Webinar Videos in April 2021”. This may be found on: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-Hz5BsB9C8JB5fGT6Ubsy-rK0ITrYlU2
Looking ahead, the branch is very pleased to announce the return of its annual corrosion forum on 31 August 2021 at TRAC (The Rope Access Company),
an enthusiastic supporter and branch sponsor of Aberdeen for many years.The day will comprise a full range of corrosion awareness talks in the morning and many interesting demos in the afternoon. To register advance interest in this event please contact the ABZ events officer, Amir Attarchi, at amirattarchi@gmail.com, giving your full name and company.
Before that, members of the branch will be supporting the SPE virtual oilfield corrosion conference and exhibition, where industry leaders discuss recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered within the oilfield corrosion community.See http://go.spe.org/lic6268, and for which registrations are now open at: https://www.spe.org/events/en/2021/conference/21ofcs/register.html
Finally, and certainly not least, we are very pleased to welcome our new branch chair, Hooman Takhtechian, who takes up his new role after several years as a committee member, and to thank Dr Muhammad Ejaz for a very successful 2020-2021 season.
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