Development of a Laboratory-Scale Corrosion Rig for Testing Pipeline Steel Materials in Seawater

Abstract

This paper reports the development of a laboratory scale corrosion rig for testing pipeline materials in seawater environment. The design factors that were considered for the rig development include availability of the locally sourced materials used for fabrication, suitability of the material for the operating condition, volume of the water required in the chamber and coefficient of performance of the chiller. The components of the rig include plastic reservoir, flexible pipes, transparent Perspex chamber, two aphacool pumps and the designed chiller. These components were designed according to specifications that are outlined in the design calculations. The coefficient of performance of the chiller was obtained to be 3.58 while the volumes of the reservoir and chamber were determined to be 0.0776 m3 and 0.0172 m3 respectively. This study has shown that locally sourced materials can be used to develop corrosion rig with similar environment as those experienced by pipeline material in seawater.