Induced Currents in Pipelines - Scientific Research Publishing.pdfVIP

Engineering, 2015, 7, 219-223 Published Online May 2015 in SciRes. /journal/eng /10.4236/eng.2015.75018 Induced Currents in Pipelines Virginia Mabel Silbergleit CONICET, Instituto del Gas y del Petroleo, Facultad Ingenierıa, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina Email: vms10ar@.ar Received 4 March 2015; accepted 30 April 2015; published 6 May 2015 Copyright © 2015 by author and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). /licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Changes in the geomagnetic field produce ground induced currents that can have impacts on ar- tificial systems such as pipelines. According to these, geomagnetic perturbations observed during June 2005 are studied. The data measured on the Ottawa River Valley pipeline verify the appear- ance of induced currents greater than 700 mA and additional potential values larger than −850 V that can produce additional corrosive effects. Keywords Storm, Induced Currents, Pipelines 1. Introduction Geomagnetic disturbances can impact the operational reliability of buried pipelines. Storm events provide com- pelling evidence of a general increase of corrosion in pipeline systems. The cathodic protection (CP) is to prevent corrosion by maintaining buried pipelines at a constant potential with respect to the soil. Design requires characterization of the parameters impacting the corrosion process. A non corrosive coating is used to prevent damage, and additional protection is applied by means of CP in order to control galvanic current. The voltage (PV) at test places must be in the safe range, which is within the −850 to −1150 mV which is af- fected by CP system. The PV readings are irregular and at times