The lateral gradient technique for potential measurements in presence of stray current

Book · Sun Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:397813

Bazzoni, B; Lazzari, L ^[1]

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1. Cescor srl, Milan (Italy)

In presence of stray current, the potential measurement is inevitably affected by strong spurious ohmic drop contribution, which cannot be eliminated by ordinary techniques, such as the well known on/off one. The lateral gradient technique appeared, from the theoretical standpoint, very attractive, being easy and fast. Rather than to give the true protection potential conditions, the power of the method rely on the information on over protection conditions; this has to be avoided in order to not damage the protection coating and to exclude hydrogen evolution. After a brief introduction of the methods, either the theoretical base or the practical use, the paper describes the instrument developed for the application of the method called gradient extrapolation and the practical results achieved on field testing. The technique, fully computerized, has been applied to buried pipelines and to concrete structures. This latter application, which is not illustrated here, requires a rather more complex interpretation. Field results on buried pipelines are presented and discussed.

• OSTI ID: 397813
• Report Number(s): CONF-960389--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
ALTERNATING CURRENT
CATHODIC PROTECTION
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
DIRECT CURRENT
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRIC FIELDS
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
ELECTRODES
ELECTROLYTES
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
EXTRAPOLATION
FIELD TESTS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
PIPELINES
PROTECTIVE COATINGS
REGRESSION ANALYSIS