Investigation of corrosion behavior of carbon steel for petroleum pipeline applications under turbulent flow conditions

Abstract

This study investigates the corrosion of steel samples immersed in water with a dynamic corrosion setup at different pH values for three different velocities and three different exposure time. The characteristics of material surface were observed by utilizing Atomic Force Micrographs (AFM). Under the dynamic and static conditions, the rate of corrosion of the steel samples in deionized water (DIW) was calculated through the weight loss measurements. It has been found that the corrosion rate of steel samples under static conditions was higher with the lower pH values. It was observed that the corrosion rate was maximum at pH = 4 and the minimum at pH = 6. The static corrosion tests suggest that the corrosion rate was high in the first two days then decreased with the increasing of time of tests. The effect of wall shear stress and time of immersion was evaluated under the dynamic corrosion tests. The results suggest that increased wall shear stress lead to an increase the corrosion rate specially at pH = 4.