Aberdeen Branch – March News

The third meeting of 2017 was held on Tuesday the 28th March, with 28 attendees representing major companies including Atkins, BP, CNR, DNV GL, Lloyds Register, Oceaneering, Subsea 7, TOTAL and Wood Group. 

The event was an industrial visit to the premises of Cosasco Europe HQ in Aberdeen, to hear about the latest Advances in Probe and Coupon Monitoring and Safe Access / Retrieval of Data, with many live demonstrations being performed.

Derek Morton explains the concept of under insulation monitoring

Specialist equipment for solids erosion tracking and production well management was also illustrated.  Solids determination to minimise erosion and determine the solids-free flow rate is considered essential practice for maximising equipment life. A lively debate followed the speaker presentation with many questions from the audience. 

There were opportunities later to inspect at close hand, a wide range of advanced electronic sampling tools and data reporting systems, with Cosasco consultants and Engineers including, Andy Allan, Mark Maulvaney, Richard Rae, James Taylor, Sandy Tweddle and Dean Smith (Aberdeen Base Manager), all on hand to explain how such devices can be optimised to best advantage.

The activities that followed the technical presentation included informative demonstrations of pressurised retrieval operations of data logging devices, wireless monitoring technologies, probe and chemical monitoring applications and safety isolation devices. There were also a number of poster displays and the wide range of models and test rigs certainly kept the attention of the branch members throughout the evening. Advanced monitoring probes were displayed, including those intended specifically for laboratory use such LPR devices. The differing sensitivity and speed of available probes was clearly demonstrated, along with their most commonly used applications, e.g. Galvanic for water injection service and their relationship to other types of process instrumentation and to chemical injection monitoring was also explained.

The associated retrieval devices (which are either mechanical or hydraulic based tools) can work across a range of pressures up to 6000 psi with telescopic and non-elescopic options. Lower cost intrusive monitoring options, such the use of test coupons were also highlighted.

This event created a tremendous amount of interest from attendees, with an extended networking session following the event and some splendid catering provided by Cosasco staff which was very well received by all.  It proved to be an excellent event in every respect.

James Taylor demonstrates the High pressure mechanical retrieval tool.

The April meeting, held on Tuesday 25th, had 40 attendees from local companies, and considered advances in Cathodic Protection, looking at Simulation Techniques to help assess CP Current Output of Buried Subsea Pipeline Anodes from Field Gradient Measurements, with a most interesting presentation by Tim Froome of Beasy.   The branch evening event followed the annual Aberdeen meeting of the Marine Corrosion Forum, enthusiastically chaired by Phil Dent.

Beasy based in Southampton, serve a wide industry base and focus specifically on how CP field distribution modelling can help better inform our understanding of (often very complex) cathodic protection behaviour and to help engineers assess mitigations and improve the CP design to be implemented.   The application of their specialist software was very effectively demonstrated throughout the evening, showing the use of advanced 3D Graphics to illustrate CP current flows under a range of different conditions such as buried CP current sources (sacrificial anodes), local current activity occurring around pipeline coating defects, long range current flows, vertical current distributions and demonstrations of shielding effects / possible CP under-protection at some sites. The paper very usefully complemented an earlier one given by Tim on CP effects at Crevices and Voids at the afternoons MCF Event.

Tim showed how the modelling software can assist in both determining the overall CP system performance and ensuring adequate protective current distribution, as well as assisting in determining the overall CP system life and the likely relative consumption of CP system anodes.

Many questions from the audience were forthcoming including the future integration of the CP Models with established surveys methods used by major subsea survey contractors, so as to make the best use of gathered CP data and to optimize reporting for the CP Systems owners.

Modelling of CP current flowlines is clearly explained by the speaker.

The CP Flowline phenomenon aroused great interest amongst gathered delegates and the speaker explained that Beasy are intending to develop these relationships forward in the future, so as to assist the subsea industry and the extensive Marine CP markets.

For information about the Aberdeen branch activities please contact our branch secretary, Frances Chalmers, ICorrABZ@gmail.com, alternatively a calendar of local events of interest to corrosion professionals in the Aberdeen area and the opportunity to sign up to the branch mailing list is available at https://sites.google.com/site/icorrabz/home

Aberdeen Branch have also established their new Media Centre, which can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/aberdeen-icorr/recent-activity/