Aarhus University, Denmark, has announced that researchers from its Department of Engineering’s ICELab are developing a new, intelligent and self-powered sensor to monitor rust found on steel reinforcement within concrete infrastructures.
The project is being conducted in collaboration with IdemoLab, at the technological service company FORCE Technology, Brøndby, Denmark, and is being funded by Innovation Fund Denmark.
According to Aarhus University the current corrosion sensors used for rust monitoring are “indicative” and “energy-demanding” in addition to being dated, error-prone, and costing up to roughly $5,500 per measuring point.In an effort to update the aging technology, Associate Professor Farshad Moradi from the University’s Department of Engineering has established project DIGIMON, which aims to develop smart, self-powered patches for updated corrosion monitoring.
The aim of this project is to develop a plaster sensor which is placed on the reinforcement and moulded into the concrete construction. The sensor and interfacing electronics will be powered by means of energy-harvesting technologies to ensure continuous monitoring of the condition of the steel.
Moradi further explained how the plaster sensors will work, describing that once developed, the sensors would use ultrasonic waves generated locally in the self-powered sensor inside the concrete to monitor the corrosion.Once information is collected from the developed plaster sensors, it would be sent to a central computer to be processed.
In a new occasional series about our industry leaders, Corrosion Management (CM) interviewed Bill Hedges, who has worked in corrosion and integrity management for over 30 years, and was recently promoted into the role of Chief Engineer for the Materials Group at BP. We asked him to describe his career path, and to reflect on the future of the corrosion industry.
CM: Bill, can you tell us about how you came to be a corrosion professional?
Bill: I don’t think anyone grows up wanting to be a corrosion engineer! I was born in the early 1960’s and grew up with the exploration of space and always wanted to be an astronaut. This led to an interest in science at an early age and in particular chemistry which I still love. So, while I could only pretend to be an astronaut I was able to do early experiments with the chemistry sets of the day – which I don’t think could be sold anymore for safety reasons. I had several near misses and my mother could never part with the coffee table covered in scorch marks from an early magnesium burning adventure.
My love of chemistry was encouraged by my school teachers to whom I am very grateful as well as my friends who stuck with me despite being a chemistry nerd. I went on to study Chemistry at Southampton University and in my 3rd year I discovered Electrochemistry which I really enjoyed, and chose to do my final year project in this area. This introduced me to Prof. Derek Pletcher who I admire greatly, and he remains a good friend. He was very supportive in my early career and encouraged me to do a Ph.D. project with him studying rechargeable lithium batteries, which was great fun. So far, no mention of the “corrosion” word and although I never thought of it at the time, I came to realise that a battery is simply a controlled corrosion reaction (apologies battery chemists). I went on to Oxford University as a post-doctoral student for a year to work on a transcutaneous sensor to measure dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) in human blood using a conductivity approach – more on CO2 later!
CM: When did you transition from University to Industry?
Bill: My first industry job was with a packaging company, Metal Box, as a Corrosion Scientist studying the corrosion effects of a range of substances on tin and aluminium cans. It was lots of fun, doing experiments in food products, beers, wine, household cleaners etc. which gave me a good understanding of corrosion testing methods and introduced me to my lifelong interest in corrosion.
I then joined Exxon Chemical (later known as Nalco Exxon and now Nalco) in Abingdon and then Fawley, UK, in their oil field chemistry group also as a corrosion scientist – although this is where the blurring between scientist and engineer began. The focus was on understanding internal corrosion in oil and gas (O&G) systems and developing corrosion inhibitors to control corrosion. This is where my earlier work on CO2 became very useful as CO2 is the primary cause of internal corrosion in the O&G upstream industry. It was also where I first became a Team Leader which relates to another key passion of mine – working with, and developing people. It was a fantastic role which allowed me to travel to many interesting parts of the world and gave me my first overseas assignment for 2 years in Houston, Texas, USA, as the worldwide group leader for corrosion technology.
CM: Ultimately you stuck with O&G, can you tell us about your career with BP?
Bill: In 1997, I joined BP as a corrosion engineer and found myself in a team led by Don Harrop, a highly respected engineer, who has since become a good friend and mentor to me. My first role was to run the corrosion laboratory which is where we did our work on helping to understand the role of acetate ions on CO2 corrosion rates. We also developed a CO2 corrosion rate prediction model known as Cassandra which we provided to the industry.
After 3 years, I moved to their operation in Trinidad and Tobago, initially as a corrosion engineer. There I was promoted to the role of Integrity Manager which allowed me to expand my experience to include corrosion, inspection and production chemistry, disciplines.
After 5 years in the tropics, I was given the opportunity to move to Alaska also as the Integrity Manager for a much larger team and business. This gave me an experience I learnt greatly from, because shortly after I arrived we had a corrosion leak that resulted in an oil spill covering two acres on the Tundra. Living and working through this incident and its impact, whilst dealing with lawyers, consultants, politicians, regulators and the media was life changing and, in the end, very rewarding.
In 2012, I returned to the UK to become the Corrosion Authority for BP’s upstream business, and in 2018 I became the Chief Engineer for the Materials Group which is comprised of the Corrosion, Materials, Welding, Inspection, Production chemistry, Pipelines, Risers and Subsea teams. So, although I now work in the broader area of Integrity Management I still maintain a strong connection with corrosion.
CM: Do you have any specific career advice or learnings to share?
Bill: Yes. Career tip #1 – If anyone offers you a paid job as a corrosion engineer on a Caribbean island – take it!
Career tip #2: If all the above sounds like I’ve been very fortunate you would be right. However, it omits the numerous job applications I was rejected for and the frustrations that it brings. So, if you are passionate about what you do but cannot seem to find the right career path my advice is to keep working hard, persevere and look for alternative pathways. It is my experience that opportunities usually appear – although not always at the most convenient time!
I have continued to try and learn and broaden my experiences and have been privileged to be recognised for my work with several accreditations and honours, FRSC, C.Chem., C.Sci., FNACE, FICorr. and C.Eng. I love to work with, and encourage younger engineers, as well as the broader corrosion community, and I am a strong supporter of both the ICorr and NACE student / Young Engineer Programmes. I’m also a strong advocate for getting more women into our industry and have supported the NACE “Women in Corrosion” initiatives.
So, what have I learned? Firstly, corrosion is a brilliant, fun and rewarding role. We don’t often think about it, but it is also a very responsible role, keeping people and the environment safe. As a colleague and good friend once said to me “corrosion is not simple” – it’s a complicated, multi-disciplinary subject where it’s rare for one person to have all the answers, which means team work is essential. As Corrosion Engineers we have made many advances, and it’s my belief that we do a great service to the industry in general, and the communities we work in.
CM: What are your thoughts about the future as a corrosion professional?
Bill: I think the future is very exciting. I believe we will see more automation with sensors, robots, drones and crawlers collecting key data for us, which also reduces the risk to people. It will be impossible for a single engineer to analyse all the data, so the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence will become critical to convert it into useful information that can help us control corrosion more efficiently than today. Don’t be frightened by this – we will always need corrosion engineers – we’ll just be using new skills to complement what we already have. Finally, I believe materials are an important part of our future, non-corrosive (if there is such a thing!), light-weight materials that can be used where appropriate.
I’m looking forward to it.
CM: Thank you Bill, so are we!
The branch has now moved its activities to the Sir Ian Wood Building, Robert Gordon University (RGU), which provides ‘State of the Art’ Teaching / AV Facilities, and kicked off its new session with some thoughtful insights into the complex issue of Preferential Weld Corrosion (PWC) in a presentation by Neil Gallon and Michael Young of Rosen. This meeting was also the annual joint event with TWI (The Welding Institute) North Scottish Branch.
Pre-September meeting networking at the Robert Gordon University.
PWC is of increasing concern to many operators, especially in relation to ageing assets. This talk helped explain what exactly PWC was, and discussed some of the many complex welding parameters / considerations and features that can lead to PWC. The talk also discussed procedures for diagnosis of PWC, identification of mitigation options, and highlighted several other difficulties and issues that can arise with both of these aspects in relation to PWC management.
September speakers (L to R), Neil Gallon and Michael Young (of Rosen) with Aberdeen Branch chair Dr Yunnan Gao, and Mark Bragg, Technical Secretary of TWI North Scottish Branch.
September speakers (L to R), Neil Gallon and Michael Young (of Rosen) with Aberdeen Branch chair Dr Yunnan Gao, and Mark Bragg, Technical Secretary of TWI North Scottish Branch.
Immediately preceding the September event, committee Member – Ms. Zahra Lotfi, Snr. Corrosion Engineer, Oceaneering International, gave a presentation to students of the School of Engineering, explaining how corrosion control is an essential part of engineering design and maintenance of every aspect of our lives – our buildings, transport, gas, oil, water industries, and emphasising how all depend for their survival on its prevention. This event was part of a series of talks to Aberdeen University and RGU University students to encourage them to take up free ICorr membership and to become more involved in the corrosion community.
The well attended September event on PWC for subsea and topsides welded systems.
The well attended September event on PWC for subsea and topsides welded systems.
Vice chair Stephen Tate followed on from these university presentations by providing assistance to the AFBE-UK Transition and Interview Programme on 13th October. AFBE-UK promotes higher achievements in education and engineering particularly among people from black and minority ethnicity backgrounds. Interested parties can seek further information at https://afbe.org.uk/about-us
In October, Chris Burke, Technical Consultant / Product Manager of Emerson – Permasense gave a presentation on “Non-intrusive wall thickness monitoring”. Permansense was originally a joint research project between BP and Imperial College, London, and is now part of Emerson, operating worldwide with currently over 20,000 sensor devices in-service.
Changes to process operations can often have a significant impact on plant integrity. For example the onset of sand production can be caused through increases in the drawdown on a well and high flowrate from bringing on new or previously shut-in wells, and which can impact on the effectiveness of chemical corrosion inhibitors. Current long-term risk-based asset integrity methodologies cannot predict these sudden operational events, meaning the increased levels of erosion or corrosion that these events can cause can often go undiscovered until the next planned inspection, and risk failing before that.
Chris spoke about optimizing plant integrity through continuous wall thickness monitoring using fully wireless ATEX rated equipment for automated UT, that can be very quickly set-up at upstream and downstream energy sites.
Chris Burke of Emerson-Permasense, explaining sensor technology.
Chris Burke of Emerson-Permasense, explaining sensor technology.
This talk complemented the September one, in that the sensors are now also being installed to monitor PWC, and this will be the subject of a future technical article.
The presentation reviewed the increasing use being made by many operators of continuous / automated wall thickness monitors as a means to not only track erosion and corrosion in areas of concern, but as a means of identifying underlying process operations responsible – thereby facilitating and validating corrosion mitigation strategies online so that timely, evidence-based, integrity management decisions can be made.
Advantages of these new tools to corrosion / integrity engineers were discussed in great detail, prompting many questions from the large audience on matters relating to sensor installation methods, durability, system size, and data management.
All past Aberdeen ICorr Presentations may be found on:
https://sites.google.com/site/icorrabz/resource-center
Full details of future events can be found on the diary page of the magazine and on the website, or contact: ICorrABZ@gmail.com
The third branch event of 2018 took place on Tuesday the 27th March, with 32 attendees representing major companies including, Aberdeen Foundries, ABR Engineering, Atkins, Axiom NDT, CAN Offshore Ltd, DNV GL, ICR Integrity Ltd, Lloyds Register, Lux Assure Ltd, Maersk Oil (now TEP UK Ltd), Oceaneering, One Subsea, Plant Integrity Management Ltd, PROSERV, Shell UK Ltd, Sonomatic and Wood plc.
The event was an industrial visit to the premises of Element Materials Technology in Aberdeen, to attend a technical presentation of “Sour Service Testing of Carbon Steel Girth Welds” by Phil Dent, Element’s Global Corrosion Specialist, followed by a visit to the new H2S / Sour Service Laboratories.
Phil Dent, Element’s Global Corrosion Specialist explains SSC Phenomenon.
Ian Farquharson, General Manager of Element Aberdeen and Edinburgh branches, introduced Element, and noted that is ranked as the 5th biggest materials testing and certification firm in the world following its recent merger with EXOVA. He also mentioned that Element Aberdeen is a UKAS and ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory which offers one of the most comprehensive ranges of metallurgical materials testing and analysis services in the UK.
Phil Dent started his technical presentation by defining sour service conditions, followed by a description of the various types of sour service cracking mechanisms, and the environmental factors affecting the susceptibility of materials under sour service regimes. The sour service cracking mechanisms which were presented included Sulphide Stress Cracking (SSC), Hydrogen Induced Cracking (HIC), Stress Orientated Hydrogen Induced Cracking (SOHIC), and Soft-Zone Cracking (SZC). The various test methods such as the Four Points Bend test (NACE TM0316), C-Ring test (NACE TM0177, Method C), Full Ring test (BS 8701), and Uniaxial tensile test (NACE TM0177, Method A) were also explained.
The corrosion testing laboratory visit was supervised by Paul Roberts, Corrosion and Chemistry Manager, who explained that the corrosion testing services cover a full range of environmental testing simulations, including pipeline corrosion testing for sour and non-sour applications, hydrogen testing, pitting, full ring tests, as well as SCC tests.
Element Laboratories in Aberdeen also specialise in materials qualification for sour service applications and offer standard HIC, SSC tests and also more specialised Full Ring and SOHIC tests and follow international testing standards and protocols such as those from ASTM, IP MIL and NACE. Paul summarised the procedures for the H2S sour service axial tensile test, high temperature / high pressure, electrochemical tests and strain gauging.
Element Laboratory Example of Serious SCC Type Cracking.
The questions raised by attendees during the technical presentation and laboratory visits were well responded to by the hosts. This event attracted a high interest within the professionals and executives of major oil and gas operators, engineering consultancies, and service companies in Aberdeen, to visit one of the major testing and materials qualifications bodies here in United Kingdom. Overall, it proved to be an excellent event in every respect.
The April evening meeting had 78 attendees, and followed on from a very successful visit to Aberdeen by the Marine Corrosion Forum.
George Gair – Global Inspection Manager for Subsea 7 presenting to ICorr ABZ.
George Gair of Subsea 7, started the evening session with a thought provoking theme ‘Subsea Inspection – The Future’, that considered many aspects of the current cost reduction environment where there is a major focus now on how to reduce costs by incorporating new philosophies / technologies.
Very clearly the drive is to produce new and robust methods of harvesting sensor data, and subsea hardware suppliers are looking at increased in-situ equipment monitoring and intervention methods (the oceanographic community has developed remote seabed environmental monitoring systems). George highlighted many significant indicators that show a definite trend towards smarter systems, a key driver being to learn and incorporate inspection technologies from other industries such as Aerospace, Automotive, Medical and Power Generation, together with more efficient use of gathered data.
Monzar Najami – Principal Inspection Engineer of Oceaneering International.
Monzar Najami and Hooman Takhtechian of Oceaneering International followed on with a similarly stimulating discussion on the theme of, ‘Integrity Management of Brownfield Projects: Challenges and Rewards’, highlighting the many important analysis and data gathering areas of modern RBI – Risk Based Inspection methodologies.
The presenters informed the audience that the greatest challenge to developing and implementing an asset integrity programme during Brownfield development projects, is the fact that project schedule and milestones often take primacy over integrity management processes, and in particular emerging vital integrity related interventions which can lead to conflict and disagreement. Any delay in the implementation of these activities impedes the Integrity Management Programme (IMP) and increases the level of risk to the facilities in the operating stage.
Key stages in an IMP project were highlighted as:
a) Identify stakeholders early in the project (project team, operations, planners, site personnel)
b) Define strategies and processes and add activities to the construction plan (integrated project activity approach)
c) Analyse historical data (collect the available list of failures, anomalies and review root cause analysis)
d) Material fitness for new process (review threats assessment and existing material suitability)
e) Baseline inspections: Get in early (define scope and input your inspection requirements in the manufacturer’s ITP)
f) Brownfield revamp activities: Scrutinize output (repair recommendations were challenged and resulted in major cost saving, and change in material selection)
g) Tagging and RBA output alignment with the existing CMMS (understand the existing Computerized Maintenance Management System prior to your RBA to avoid major re-work)
h) Deployment of new and advanced inspection technologies (to achieve major cost savings)
A wide range of questions followed the very comprehensive presentation and all the presenters’ slides are available on, https://sites.google.com/site/icorrabz/resource-center.
For information about all forthcoming Aberdeen branch activities, please contact, Dr Yunnan Gao, ICorrABZ@gmail.com. To sign up to the branch mailing list, go to, https://sites.google.com/site/icorrabz/home
ICorr Aberdeen will host its Annual Corrosion Awareness Event on Tuesday 14th August 2018. For further details please contact: Corrosion Awareness Chair, Steve Tate on, steve_f_tate@hotmail.com
Question:
Why are coatings often supplemented with cathodic protection to protect against corrosion?
Answer:
Corrosion is one of the most critical failure mechanisms in structures, installations, components, and mechanical systems, in which materials go through decay or deterioration, which in turn compromises the integrity of these structures or systems. Deterioration is the cause of the formation of oxides, hydroxides, or sulphides, which are naturally more stable forms of any refined material. There are several reasons for corrosion to initiate and propagate, these include environmental and operational conditions, material properties, and electrochemical activation. Although several factors are involved in initiating and propagating corrosion, a key factor is the availability of an active metal surface, which incubates electrochemical changes leading to corrosion.
Therefore, the primary focus, as a cost effective, efficient, and reliable technique, is to convert the active metal surface areas into passive surface areas. This helps stop or decelerate corrosion, and can be done by providing a protective current, which in turn reduces the potential of a metal surface. This results in cathodic protection, hence stopping or significantly reducing electrochemical changes, in other words, any corrosive attack is halted. There are two conventional methods by which passivation of metal surfaces is achieved. These are commonly known as (i) sacrificial anode cathodic protection, and (ii) impressed current cathodic protection. The above methods have been widely used in several industrial applications, such as petrochemical, marine, and infrastructure. Another effective technique for mitigating corrosion is to use a coating. The coating acts as an anti-corrosive protective layer, a barrier, or a sacrificial layer over the metal. Coatings offer several benefits by protecting materials, enhancing surface characteristics, and avoiding or reducing the risks of failure. Corrosion, however, becomes more complex in terms of its failure mechanisms when structures and components are dynamically loaded as in marine structures. This will cause failures such as corrosion fatigue and stress corrosion cracking.
Or when static structures are exposed to more aggressive environments, corrosion and corrosion failures will significantly accelerate. The combination of both coatings and cathodic protection will enhance metal resistance against corrosion. Therefore, a combination of both is widely used. These preventative methods also assist at the design stage in reducing the required weight of material for required operating lifetime and can thus significantly reduce fabrication and later transport costs with net-zero type benefits.
A more complex corrosion mechanism will occur when components are dynamically loaded and are subject to relative motion. This adds more complexity to attempts at stopping or controlling corrosion, because other mechanical and physical factors are now combined and are contributing to a more complex form of deterioration. In such instances, the use or application of cathodic protection becomes complicated, challenging, and in some cases, it becomes almost impossible to meet specified CP criteria. Therefore, more robust methods of enhancing corrosion resistance through material development, advanced coatings and coating techniques, corrosion monitoring, and prognostic measures, have been developed over the past several years. It is more pragmatic to provide bespoke solutions for specific applications.
If the components are interacting, then surface wear will occur. In a scenario where corrosion is absent, the wear purely results from mechanical loading and surface deterioration. However, in the presence of corrosive species, corrosion will also occur. This leads to a wear-corrosion mechanism.
Recent Coating Developments
Researchers have been developing advanced coatings to withstand both corrosion and wear in challenging and harsh environmental and operational conditions subject to design life requirements. Recent developments in nanocoatings and nanocomposite coatings [5], have shown that more attractive coating solutions are available for applications in more complex mechanical and chemical conditions. These nanocomposite coatings are, for example, Ni/Al2O3, Ni/SiC, Ni/ZrO2, Ni/Graphene (GPL), and several others. Such coatings have been developed in order to be subjected to corrosion while incorporating the effects of key mechanical properties. These newly developed nanocomposite coatings have been tested according to ASTM B117,
salt spray testing [1].
Further study of the above nanocomposite coatings has been conducted within the wear context [2].
A comprehensive study of the above nanocoatings at atomic surface layers, incorporating corrosive fluids, and using a numerical approach, was conducted [3].
It is well known that the durability and reliability of complex interacting systems are very important from a cost viewpoint and within a wider sustainability context. These interacting systems are subject to corrosion failures and are therefore a major concern for industry professionals. It is important to fully diversify design parameters.
Remote Monitoring
Further work has been performed to predict corrosion in dynamically corrosive environments by considering physical and mechanical characteristics. Researchers have recently developed and patented a new corrosion sensor that could improve the safety and reliability of large structures such as bridges, aircraft, military vehicles, and gas pipelines. The device can detect defects and risks in major infrastructure at a much earlier stage than the methods that are currently used. As well as improving safety, it could reduce the need for time consuming repairs, which can come at a significant cost and inconvenience to industries and the public.
In summary, it evident that the primary objective of an industrial coating is to prevent corrosion, and to withstand a variety of hazardous chemicals. Choosing the right coating is just as important as choosing the coating itself, a wrongly specified coating can lead to a wide range of problems, from maintenance to premature failure. No coating is completely free of defects, even when freshly applied. Faults can occur during the production of the coating as well as during handling and improper application of the coating. A defect may also arise during the course of service. The most common causes of coating failures include inadequate surface preparation, a non-friendly environment, poor formulation, and an inefficient application technique. Coatings with high efficiency are more expensive. Thicker coatings, the use of sophisticated inspection methods, and fixing specific defects, all result in higher cost and critically weight. Sometimes it is advantageous to use another protection method to supplement coatings, which is why we use cathodic protection and especially in marine situations. There is an overall benefit when a good coating application is combined with cathodic protection [4].
Prof. Zulfiqar Khan, Bournemouth University NanoCorr, Energy & Modelling (NCEM) Research Group.
References
1. Nazir, M.H., Khan, Z.A., Saeed, A., Bakolas, V., Braun, W., Bajwa, R. and Rafique, S., 2017. Analyzing and modelling the corrosion behavior of Ni/Al2O3, Ni/SiC, Ni/ZrO2 and Ni/graphene nanocomposite coatings. Materials, 10 (11).
2. Nazir, M.H., Khan, Z.A., Saeed, A., Bakolas, V., Braun, W. and Bajwa, R., 2018. Experimental analysis and modelling for reciprocating wear behaviour of nanocomposite coatings. Wear, 416-417, 89-102.
3. Nazir, M.H., Khan, Z.A., Saeed, A., Siddaiah, A. and Menezes, P.L., 2018. Synergistic wear-corrosion analysis and modelling of nanocomposite coatings. Tribology International, 121, 30-44.
4. L.L. Sheir, R.A. Jarman, and G.T. Burstein; “Corrosion”, Volume 2: “Corrosion Control”, 3rd edition, Butterworth Heinemann, ISBN 0-7506-1077-8.
5. https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/news/theexpresswire/nano-coating-market-by-2031
Continuity Straps across Flanges for providing Cathodic Protection.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
