Regional Cathodic Protection Design of a Natural Gas Distribution Station

Regional cathodic protection has significant impact on pipeline integrity management. After risk analyses of a newly built gas distribution station constructed in an area with large dwelling density, risk score was high because of potential threat caused by galvanic corrosion. Except reinforced steel in concrete, there are four kinds of metal buried under earth: carbon steel, galvanized flat steel, zinc rod and graphite module. To protect buried pipeline from external corrosion, design and construction of regional cathodic protection was proposed. Current density was measured with potential using potential dynamic test and boundary element method (BEM) was used to calculate current requirement and optimize best anode placement during design. From our calculation on the potential, optimized conditions for this area were that an applied current was 3A and anode was placed at 40 meters deep from the soil surface. It results in potential range between $-1.128V_{CSE}$ and $-0.863V_{CSE}$, meeting the $-0.85V_{CSE}$ criterion and the $-1.2V_{CSE}$ criterion that no potential was more negative than $-1.2V_{CSE}$ to cause hydrogen evolution at defects in coating of the pipeline.