Invest in Prevention

With the economy in an uproar, it can be difficult to focus on investing in long term maintenance and prevention of infrastructure failure. And yet, those investments are crucial to America’s infrastructure and our ability to recover from recession. Prevention and mitigation of corrosion in bridges, pipelines, power plants, liquid natural gas storage facilities and ports saves millions of dollars in future repairs, but even more importantly, prevents major disasters that disrupt commerce—something America cannot afford.

We only have to look back at the tragic loss of the I-35W Bridge in Minnesota last year to see the disruption caused by the collapse and 12 month repair. (Corroded gusset plates were part of the reason for the failure.) The Minnesota Commercial Railway was blocked, along with numerous auto and truck routes. The Federal Aviation Administration restricted pilots in the vicinity for a period. Thirty five people lost their jobs when Aggregate Industries, a company that delivered construction materials by barge, cut production in the area. Many businesses, large and small, near the collapse site reported losses of 25% to 50% of their income. Ultimately, the state increased the fuel tax by $0.055 per gallon to fund Mn/DOT maintenance. The new bridge cost $234 million. The cost in loss of life was immeasurable.

And, we can learn from an incident across the ocean: on June 3, 2008, a natural gas pipeline exploded in Western Australia. Reports say the explosion cut that nation’s fuel supply by a third and drained between $2.4 billion and $4.5 billion from Australia’s economy. The investigating body, Australia’s National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority, reported that the rupture occurred because of thinning of the pipe wall and corrosion of the external surface.

Proven technology exists to prevent these disasters. In the United States, cathodic protection is required on energy-carrying pipelines. Other structures, such as bridges, tunnels, power plants, piers and ports can also be protected from corrosion by involving certified corrosion engineers in planning new structures and maintaining existing structures. The cost of including the right people and the right technology in America’s infrastructure is minimal in comparison to the cost of corrosion, which is $276 billion or 3.1% of the GDP.

We’ve learned that we can’t put blinders on and hope the worst won’t happen. It’s time to be realistic and invest in our future.

William R. Schutt
President and CEO
MATCOR, Inc.
Doylestown PA
www.matcor.com

CP- A balcony's best friend

The Florida coast is a particularly harsh environment for concrete structures, combining heat, humidity and high concentrations of chloride. Concrete balconies in the region are especially susceptible to corrosion of reinforcing steel, requiring major repair and maintenance.

Condo owners recognize that repeating patch maintenance cycles are disruptive and increasingly expensive. However, property managers don't always implement methods for corrosion prevention out of ignorance or because of the cost.

But, applying cathodic protection (CP) can lengthen the lifecycle of the reinforcing steel and concrete, delaying the need for maintenance. CP is a viable long term solution to protect these vulnerable concrete structures, but applying CP to condominium balconies is not easy. The evolution of cathodic protection, as applied to concrete balconies in Florida, has been an evolutionary process. Many systems have been tried with varying degrees of technical and commercial success. In ture Darwinian fashion, some of the solutions took the path to extinction, others evolved and have flourished, and some technologies moved to other, more favorable applications.

Many structural engineers now recognize the benefits of cathodic protection (CP) to stop the corrosion process and how to apply the right system in a given environment. This long-term solution extends the life of these important concrete structures and protects residents who own condos with balconies.

I just hope condo owners and property managers do their due diligence to find out what available technologies will keep residents safe.


Bill

Waiting for disaster to strike

That sounds terrible, doesn't it? After all, we are in the business of preventing disaster. We use proven technologies to ward off catastrophic failures of metallic structures.

On the outside, we're the good guys who get to wear white hats. Yet, it is up to us to react with immediacy to spectacular failures that validate our existence as corrosion engineers.

Without them, nobody would be interested in corrosion prevention. The press would never show any interest in our work. And local state and the federal government would have no incentive to create regulations requiring corrosion control.

It would be great to prevent corrosion without the disaster. But that is not how we react as humans.

A great case in point is the power industry, a critical sector for the health of any country. The United States just finished a boom period that saw thousands of gas-fired power plants built over the past 20 years. Each one supplied their natural gas feed stocks from buried transmission pipelines, heavily regulated by the Department of Transportation and other local agencies.

And why are they heavily regulated? You guessed it -- disasters. Really nasty ones where gas pipelines explode, kill school children, and catch the attention of communities and politicians.

Every gas-fired power plant has a metering station, similar to a home's. At a power plant, the metering station is the boundary for ownership of the natural gas product and for responsibility for corrosion control.

Yet it's also the boundary for the regulations. Power plants are not bound to the same regulations that apply to gas pipeline companies. That means metering points outside the power plant undergo frequent corrosion testing and inspecting, while metering points within do not -- hence the existence of gas-fired plants with buried gas pipelines feeding their turbines.

Worse, power-plant personnel are blissfully unaware of the life-threatening risks below them. The corrosion control system that power plant designers often put in are contractor-grade, vanilla CP systems. These systems may work, but require frequent testing, and are easily knocked off line.

Designers often don’t care if the systems are not reliable because they only have a one-year plant warranty. After that, it is up to the operator to keep them online. And since operators are only concerned with producing energy, they don’t understand what CP system they have, what they need to make it work, or how to test it.

There are some exceptions -- plants that have well-designed, robust CP systems maintained and tested by qualified NACE CP Certified technicians. But they are few and far between.

If we have a catastrophic gas explosion at a power plant -- and in my opinion, that will happen soon -- perhaps the disaster would open the Power industry’s eyes. Because right now, their eyes are wide shut.

CP not a cure-all for advanced corrosion

As a corrosion engineer, I field plenty of questions about corrosion protection (CP) and our niche technology. One person recently asked me if CP could be effective in extending the life of a rusted, 66-year-old pipe. If nothing is done, the pipe will last about two more years. It has had some leaks.

The short answer is yes, because CP can stop further damage on infrastructures with advanced corrosion. Tests should be conducted to determine the physical integrity of the pipeline. If it is physically OK and can be repaired, then the final decision rests with the owner and it is a economic/management decision they must make.

Today, there a number of tests that the engineer can conduct to determine the integrity of a pipeline and to greatly extend its life. There are even older pipelines still operating with functioning CP systems. The age of the pipeline isn’t the determining factor.

Got questions of your own? Drop me a line in the comments section, and I'll try to answer it in a future post.