Abstract
Soil corrosion of carbon steel samples buried up to hundred days close to a high voltage power transmission line tower was examined by weight loss vs. time. A higher weight loss was observed if the samples were electrically connected to the tower than if they were not. This was attributed to the influence of alternating current (AC) signals induced in the soil by the transmission line. This field study showed for the first time the influence of the AC power line on the buried structure of the tower, while other studies so far were focused only on AC corrosion of cathodically protected coated pipelines, running parallel to the transmission line. An improved method was used to measure weight loss by descaling in Clark solution. The new method substitutes discontinuous measurements, proposed in the ASTM-G1-90 standard, by in situ measurements of the weight loss during descaling, using a computer controlled microbalance.
Highlights
Alternating current (AC) induced corrosion is subject of scientific research since it has been observed that the soil corrosion of buried metallic structures under certain circumstances is accelerated by the influence of AC signals[1,2,3,4]
It is today generally accepted in the scientific community that AC signals from high voltage power lines can influence the corrosion of nearby installed protected metallic structures like pipelines
While it seems to be consolidated that the rate of AC corrosion increases with the increase of the amplitude of AC density, predicting risks for damaged coatings, the existence of a safe lower limit of the amplitude is still in question
Summary
Alternating current (AC) induced corrosion is subject of scientific research since it has been observed that the soil corrosion of buried metallic structures under certain circumstances is accelerated by the influence of AC signals[1,2,3,4]. Potential measurements of the tower versus a buried Cu/CuSO4 reference electrode, made between the lightning rod and the neighboring tower showed in many cases that the potential becomes more negative towards the tower This shows that an anodic current flows off the tower surface, indicating its corrosion[18]. In the present work, soil corrosion of carbon steel was examined by field studies with samples buried near a high voltage power transmission line tower. The weight loss of samples electrically connected to the tower was measured vs. time and compared with samples without electric contact
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