Flow Accelerated Corrosion

Failures in Refineries
Among various deterioration modes in steam/condensate services flow accelerated
corrosion (FAC) is established as the chief failure mechanism. This article focuses on
various aspects of FAC from the standpoint of reliability and safety. It discusses areas
susceptible to FAC, effects of different factors of FAC like flow velocity, water chemistry,
material of construction, effect of dissolved oxygen etc., and possible solutions in
terms of water chemistry control, use of specific inspection program, selection and
upgrading to suitable metallurgy and limiting flow velocity by proper design.

A
mong the few identified failure mechanisms
in condensate & steam services, Flow Ac-
celerated Corrosion, or FAC, is established
as the chief failure mechanism. This phe-
nomenon is also known as Erosion-Corrosion (EC).
FAC is defined as a corrosion process in which the
protective oxide layer equipment in steam/conden-
sate service is dissolved under the combined effect
of corrosion and flow velocity. It is generally a slow
corrosion mechanism, but may attain a very high
corrosion rate (3-5 mm / year) if not taken care of.
The FAC mechanism, first noticed in late 1960’s, is
Figure 1
now well understood. Following is an attempt to
compile the available information and mitigate the Both the survey records are from Russian Nuclear
T effects of FAC in our refineries. Power plants. It may be noted that more than 55%
piping have been effected and thinned down in
E Prevalence of Flow Assisted Corrosion above two graphs.
At present, no reliable database exists for FAC- It is expected that prevalence of FAC is more wide-
C related failure rates for refineries or any other con- spread in steam/condensate networks in a typical oil
ventional industries which deals with steam/ refinery.
H condensate services and networks. However, it can
Figure 2
N be inferred from databases of nuclear industries. It is
expected that effects of FAC in typical industry sce-
O narios would be similar or more than that of a typical
nuclear industry.
L The prevalence of FAC in steam/condensate serv-
ice can be understood from database of Nuclear
O Power Plants (NPP). Even with utmost control in
operating parameters, FAC has affected more than
G 50% of circuits in two Russian NPPs as observed in
Y the following survey results.

Corrosion 40 HYDROCARBON ASIA, JULY-SEPT 2010 Visit our website at: http://www.safan.com
 Few well known cases of failures by FAC have been Appearance
included along with pictures in the article.

Susceptible Zone
Equipment / piping operating in the following
conditions are susceptible to FAC
• Temp. : Between 100 C to 300 C
• Service : Water or Water + Steam. Water as a
phase must be present.
• Material : Chiefly CS & low alloy steel
• Location : Chiefly located near bends, reducers,
downstream of orifice etc where
turbulence is created.
• Effect : a) General thinning of affected areas
b) Deposition of oxides in equipment
– leading to under-deposit
corrosion (caustic gouging/phos-
phate attack/H2 attack in boilers)
& inefficient heat transfer.

Types & Appearance of FAC Figure 4. Single phase FAC – orange peel appearance
FAC may be from single phase (water) or two-
phase (water + steam).

Susceptible Zone:
Single Phase : 100 C to 190 C
Two-Phase : Approx 130 C to 280 C, although
failures at 300 C have been reported.

Location
Single phase FAC occurs at inside radius of bends/
Figure 5. Two-phase FAC - tiger stripes appearance
fitting
Two-phase FAC occurs at outer radius of bends / Factors Affecting FAC
fittings The effect of various operating factors can be
Figure 3. Location of single
phase & two-phase FAC.

HYDROCARBON ASIA, JULY-SEPT 2010 41

 summarized as below: C) Velocity
A) Temperature (Typical)

Figure 8

Salient Points
Figure 6 1. FAC is temperature-dependent. Max corro-
sion observed at 150 C for single phase & at
190 C for two-phase. Corrosion rate is less for
B) pH
Cr-alloyed materials.
2. High pH reduces FAC. Above pH=9.0, corro-
sion rate reduces drastically.
3. Velocity increases FAC. The rate of increase
is different for different material. CS is mostly
affected. 2.25 Cr-1Mo is least affected by ve-
locity.
4. Limiting velocity: Single phase – 5.2-6.1M/
Sec, Two-phase – Approx 25 M/Sec (depend-
ent steam fraction & pressure). Please note
that this is for straight piping. For U-bends
etc., a multiplication factor of 1.75 or more is
to be used.
5. In two-phase FAC, sometimes, minor changes
in operating pressure or feed-water flow can
drastically change the FAC scenario. In lower
operating pressure, the steam fraction will be
more in volumes, which will increase the
volumetric flow rate. Similarly change in
feed-water flow can change the steam frac-
tion too.
Figure 7

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D) Water Chemistry
Water chemistry can be of three types
a) Water + Very low dissolved oxygen + Oxygen
scavenger (ORP<<0 mv)
b) Water + Very low oxygen (O2 – 20ppb)
(ORP> 0 mv)
c) Water + Low dissolved oxygen (O2- 20-80 ppb
(ORP >> 0 mv)
For systems operating with conventional mixed
metallurgy (part CS/AS + Cu-based alloys like brass/
Cu-Ni), only type (a) water can only be used as Cu-
based alloys cannot tolerate oxygen at high tempera-
tures. Type (b) and type (c) water chemistry, pioneered
by EPRI, is generally used in USA & Europe Figure 11. Physical appearance of oxide structure.
Black area – Magnetite (Type a water)
Red area – Hematite (Type b & c water)
The effects of different water types can be sum-
marized as below: Figure 12 shows corrosion rates of different ma-
terials vis-à-vis dissolved
oxygen levels. Appreciable
reduction in corrosion rate is
observed with dissolved oxy-
gen level of 100 ppb or more.
This can be utilized in sys-
tems with no Cu/Brass com-
ponents (condensers etc.)
Here
St 37.2 - SA 106 Gr. B
15Mo 3 - C-0.5 Moly
13 Cr Mo44 - P11/P12

Figure 9. The oxide structure for type (a).

Figure 12. Effect of dissolved oxygen in type (b) and

(c) water chemistry.
Figure 10. The oxide structure for types (b) & (c).
HYDROCARBON ASIA, JULY-SEPT 2010 43
 E) Effect of Material composition

Material composition has biggest effect on FAC

rates. Even traces of Cr, Cu, Mo can change the
corrosion rate drastically.

The resistance of material to FAC has been calcu-

lated as follows :
RKEMA = 0.61 + 2.43 Cr + 1.64 Cu + 0.3 Mo

A R value of 0.92 and above provides satisfactory

resistance.

Figure 14

Conclusion
A few well known examples of FAC are shown
below :

Surry Unit 2 (USA)

Figure 13. Tubes from the high pressure preheater. FAC or Erosion- 18 inch elbow in a condensate line ruptured catastrophically in 1986.
corrosion downstream from the butt welds: Four fatalities and several injuries
(A) Leakage (R = 0.81),
(B) FAC (R = 0.84), and
(C) No FAC (R = 1.01)

The report from Benson Group (now part of Sie-

mens-Benson, Germany) gives practical guidelines
for material selection.
For practical purpose, P-11/P12 and P-22 ap-
pears to be the most suitable metallurgy. These
materials are less affected by temperature
(Graph-A), pH level (Graph-B) and Velocity
(Graph-C) as well as supported by Benson Test
Rig report (above). Mihama (Japan). A 22 inch condensate line ruptured Catastrophically
downstream of an orifice in 2004. Five fatalities and several injuries
resulted
Corrosion 44 HYDROCARBON ASIA, JULY-SEPT 2010 Visit our website at: http://www.safan.com
 Troubles on Large Diameter Pipes in NPPs
Year Unit /Company Location Pipe Diameter Consequence
1986 Surry unit 2 USA 18” Pipe Rupture
1987 Doel Beligium - (large dia) Rupture
1990 Loviisa WER 1 Finland 12” pipe Rupture
1990 Millstone Unit 3 USA 6” pipe Rupture
1990 Millstone Unit 2 USA 8” pipe Rupture
1993 Loviisa WER 2 Finland 12” pipe Rupture
1993 Sequioyah Unit 2 USA 10” pipe Rupture
1996 Maanshan Unit 2 Taiwan 12” pipe Rupture
1997 Fort Calhoun USA 12” pipe Rupture
1999 Point Beach 1 USA 4” Vessel Rupture
1999 PWR Korea 16” pipe Severe Thinning
2001 Callaway Unit 1 USA Vessel Nozzle Severe Thinning
2001 Unknown USA 16” pipe 70% thinning
2004 Ooi Unit 1 Japan 16” pipe 42% thinning
2004 Mihama Unit 3 Japan 22” pipe Rupture
Appearance of Magnetite & Magnetite +Hematite
oxide layers in steam service

Failure in a high pressure extraction line at Fort Calhoun (USA) in 1997.

No fatality.

Black Areas - Magnetite layers ….Corroded

Rupture of Feedwater heater shells at Point Beach 1 (USA) by FAC. Red Areas - Magnetite + Hematite – No corrosion
The possibility of cor-
rosion of steam/conden-
sate network by Flow
Accelerated Corrosion
(FAC) or Erosion-Corro-
sion at Mathura Refinery
is high. Repetitive failures
have taken place in vari-
ous circuits.
To reduce the failure
rate, the susceptible areas
for FAC to be identified
and remedial measures
need to be adopted. Fol-
lowing remedial measures
are suggested.
Some of the other reported failures on account of FAC or erosion-corrosion

HYDROCARBON ASIA, JULY-SEPT 2010 45

 a) Review of operating conditions, including veloc-
ity, for steam and condensate network for locat-
ing areas susceptible for FAC. Also look out for
any changes in operating pressure or feedwater
flow which might change markedly change the
FAC scenario.
b) The susceptible areas shall be checked specifi-
cally for FAC related damage. This includes –
inside & outside crowns of bends, downstream of
orifice, valves etc.
c) Metallurgy upgradation with P-11/P12 and P-22
(2.25 Cr-1 Mo) for the areas which are facing
severe FAC attacks and preparation of MoC of
the same.
d) Reducing operating velocity in condensate net-
work by increasing the pipe dia. in severely af-
fected areas.
e) Review the possibility of use of oxygenated
water in specific circuts where Cu-based al-
loys are not in use. Oxygenated water can be
obtained by adding DM water (2-5%) with
BFW/condensate.
REFERENCES
1. “FLOW ACCELERATED CORROSION” BY
R D. Port, Nalco Chemical Company, One
Nalco Center, NapervilIe, IL, 60563,
2. IAEA Workshop on “Erosion-Corrosion in-
cluding Flow Accelerated Corrosion and en-
vironmentally assisted Cracking Issues in
NPPs“ (21-23, April 2009, Moscow, Russian
Federation).
3. Presentation by Jeff Anderson in 2009
4. NACE publications – 99346.pdf, 99347.pdf
5. A r t i c l e s b y W . M . M . H u i j b r e g t s
(www.hbscc.nl)
6. EPRI Publications
7. Articles by Otaker Jonnas (steamcycles.com)
8. Articles by Dooley et al.
9. Presentation by Murat Bakirov Doctor, Gen-
eral Director of the “SCTC”CMSLM”, Russia,
Moscow
10. Test-rig.pdf - Test results from Benson test-
ing facility
11. B. Chexal, “Flow-Accelerated Corrosion in
Power Plants”, TR-106611-R1, EPRI, 1998.
12. 2 J.S. Horowitz and D Munson, “Recommen-
dations for an E_ective Flow Accelerated Cor-
rosion Program”, NSAC-202L-R3, 1011838,
Corrosion 46 HYDROCARBON ASIA, JULY-SEPT 2010
EPRI Report, May 2006.
13. 3 Wael Ahmed, “TRENDING FAC IN
CANDU REACTORS” COG-Report 07-4065,
June 2007.
14. “Prediction of two phase erosion-corrosion
in Bends” By Anthony Keating & Srdjan Nesic
HA Enquiry Number 07/09-01
This publication thanks P L Chakraborty and M.
Y. Bhave for providing this article.
P L Chakraborty is an Inspection
Manager for IOCL at Mathura Refin-
ery. He holds a BE (Met) from VNIT,
Nagpur and possesses 19 years expe-
rience in health monitoring of equip-
ment, corrosion issues, root-cause analysis of
failures, inspection and quality control of repair
maintenance/project job in oil refineries. He has
also written and presented a number of papers.
M. Y. Bhave is presently DGM
(M&I) at Indian Oil Corporation Lim-
ited, Refinery Head Quarters, New
Delhi and holds a BE (Metallurgy).
He has more than 28 years experience
in inspection and corrosion fields in oil refineries
and has hands-on experience in trouble shooting
and failure analysis in metallurgical problems. He
is experienced in material selection and up-grada-
tion suggestions, corrosion, welding, NDT and
project inspections. He has previously worked in
Indian oil Corporation, at Gujarat, Guwahati,
Mathura Refineries. He has presented many pa-
pers at national and international conferences in
India in the field of failure analysis, material selec-
tion and corrosion. He is a member of IIW and
ISNDT and a fellow of Institution of Engineers
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