Optimum Location of Electrode of Cathodic Protection System by using Boundary Element Method

BEM을 이용한 Cathode 방식 시스템에서 전극 위치 최적화

The objective of a cathodic protection system (CP) is to protect the buried metallic structure against the corrosion caused by chemical reaction between the buried structure and the surrounding medium, such as soil. This paper presents a boundary element application to determine the optimal impressed current densities in a cathodic protection system. The potential within the electrolyte is described by the Laplace's equation with nonlinear boundary conditions which are enforced based on experimentally determined electrochemical polarization curves. The optimal impressed current densities are determined in order to minimize the power supply for protection. The solution is obtained by using the conjugate gradient method in which the governing equations and the protecting conditions are taken into account by the penalty function method. Numerical example are presented to demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed method.