Boundary Element Method for Evaluation of Sacrificial Anode Cathodic Protection System Design

M. Ridha*, Syarizal Fonna and Israr Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Syiah Kuala University, Jl. Tgk. Syech Abdul Rauf No. 7 Darussalam Banda Aceh, INDONESIA
Corresponding author: Email: ridha@tdmrc.org Phone: +62-651-7554394/7554395 ext.2359 Fax: +62-651-7552222
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ABSTRACT An important cathodic protection system is well acknowledged to protect infrastructure such as pipelines and storage tanks from corrosion attack. In proper design of the protection system causes an early damage of the infrastructure. Recently, many applied cathodic protection systems are designed merely based on the previous experiences. It is urgently needed the tool that can be used to simulate the effectiveness of any design of cathodic protection system before the system is applied to any structure. In this study, the two-dimensional boundary element method was developed to simulate the effectiveness of sacrificial anode cathodic protection system. The Laplace equation is used to model the potential in the soil domain. Boundary element method is applied to solve the Laplace equation, hence the potential and current density on the metal surface and at any location in the soil can be obtained. The boundary conditions on the protected structures and sacrificial anode were represented by their polarization curves. A two-dimensional model of cathodic protection system for the pipe-line structure using ribbon sacrificial anode was used in this study. The effect of soil conductivity and distance between pipe-lines and its sacrifical anode were examined to optimize some factors that affected the design of cathodic protection system. The result shows that the proposed method can be used as a tool to simulate the effectiveness of the sacrificial anode cathodic protection system. Keywords: Cathodic protection, BEM, pipe-lines structure, sacrificial anode, polarization curve