Effect of pulsed current cathodic protection on pipeline steel API 5L X65 corrosion mitigation: An investigation and machine learning-assisted modeling

Abstract

Pulsed current cathodic protection (PCCP) could be more effective than direct current cathodic protection (DCCP) for mitigating corrosion in buried structures in the oil and gas industries if appropriate pulsed parameters are chosen. The purpose of this research is to present the corrosion prevention mechanism of the PCCP technique by taking into account the effects of duty cycle as well as frequency, modeling the relationships between pulse parameters (frequency and duty cycle) and system outputs (corrosion rate, protective current and pipe-to-soil potential) and finally identifying the most effective protection conditions over a wide range of frequency (2–10 kHz) and duty cycle (25%-75%). For this, pipe-to-soil potential, pH, current and power consumption, corrosion rate, surface deposits and investigation of pitting corrosion were taken into account. To model the input-output relationship in the PCCP method, a data-driven machine learning approach was used by training an artificial neural network (ANN). The results revealed that the PCCP system could yield the best protection conditions at 10 kHz frequency and 50% duty cycle, resulting in the longest protection length with the lowest corrosion rate at a consumption current 0.3 time that of the DCCP method. In the frequency range of 6–10 kHz and duty cycles of 50%-75%, SEM images indicated a uniform distribution of calcite deposits and no pits on cathode surface.