Analysis of different factors affecting cathodic protection for deep well casings

I. A. Metwally, A. H. Al-Badi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper introduces a comparative theoretical investigation of the conventional cathodic protection (CP) and the pulse cathodic protection (PCP) systems to show how both of them behave under different operating conditions. The effectiveness of the PCP system is also highlighted for a typical large-scale configuration as well as some field measurements have been carried out. The performance of PCP system has been analyzed in the light of getting better protection-current distribution along the protected well casing at reduced anode current together with reducing the stray current (corrosion) at any nearby unprotected structure(s). Many factors have been investigated to show their effects on the performance of the CP system, namely, soil resistivity, voltage pulse waveform and frequency, and multi-layer soil. In addition, the performance of both the conventional CP and the PCP systems has been compared to that when utilizing unused/abandoned well casing as anode energized by the conventional CP system. The PCP system shows better performance than that of the conventional CP, and a similar performance at high soil resistivity to that when using unused/abandoned well casing. On the other hand, the utilization of the unused/abandoned well casing gives superior performance, especially at low soil resistivities, where the protection-current profiles of both the conventional CP and the PCP systems decay sharply.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)245-251
Number of pages7
JournalMaterials and Corrosion
Volume61
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2010

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Surfaces, Coatings and Films
  • Metals and Alloys
  • Materials Chemistry

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