Quantitative Determination of Fluid Flow Induced Corrosion Rate of an Oil Pipeline

• Published in: Engineering Computation Proceedings pp. 250 - 252
• Main Author: Achebo, J.I.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.05.2009
• Subjects: Corrosion; Fluid flow; Internal stresses; Iron; Petroleum; Pipelines; Production engineering; Steel; Surface resistance; Water resources
• ISBN: 9780769536552; 0769536557
• DOI: 10.1109/ICEC.2009.58

This paper is aimed at discussing the effect of corrosion propagation caused by the presence of oxygen in fluid flow induced corrosion in a pipeline. The yield and wall shear stresses of the carbon steel pipeline and the fluid flow pattern were studied respectively using the Newtonian flow model. It was observed that mass momentum and mass transfer of the fluid velocity properties induced the shear stress that surpasses the yield stress of the internal surface of the pipeline. The shear properties which could be responsible for wear could further expose the internal geometry of the pipe which would alter the microstructural arrangement of the pipe. This in effect influenced the oxygen penetration that allowed the electrochemical reaction between the metal and the water to occur. Numerical method was used to compute the expected corrosion rate of 35.6 mm/year and compared with the measured corrosion rate of 35.95 mm/year which nearly matched. This result shows that the generated numerical method was potent.