Studio della protezione catodica di un sistema che simula gli interstizi su condotte sottomarine (Study of the cathodic protection applied on a system simulating occluded cells on sealines)

In this work, a study on the effect of the cathodic protection in a system simulating a crevice that, in real cases, is present in some types of connections used for submarine pipelines was carries out. The crevice was simulated in laboratory by overlapping two rectangular plates of the same size: one of them has been obtained with an ordered series of metal elements of low-alloy carbon steel, embedded in an epoxy resin; the other was a plate of PVC. All metal elements were connected to the same galvanic anode of an aluminium alloy, placed in front of the crevice opening. The system was immersed in a tank filled with artificial seawater. Although with different times, by varying the thickness of the crevice (2, 4 and 10 mm), all metal elements have achieved the conditions of immunity and the current lines reached them, even at the crevice bottom. At the end of the experimental work, a finite element simulation of the studied system was developed.