Corroconsult achieves UKAS accreditation

Corroconsult are pleased to announce that we are now UKAS accredited following a successful audit with no non-conformances, through the UK-based employee-owned certification body, Interface-NRM.

The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is appointed by the government as the only body authorised to assess the capability and competence of organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection, and calibration services.

Our integrated UKAS-accredited system certification for ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management, ISO 14001:2015 Environmental and ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety gives our clients confidence that our continued high standards of service are being maintained, improved, and reassures them that our audit assessments are robust, fair, and consistent for all. We achieved our first QA/QC ISO 9001 in the year 2000, we then celebrated being the first in our field to achieve ISO 14001 in 2005. In 2013 we were accredited the OHSAS 18001 standard which was then upgraded to the ISO 45001:2018 in 2021. We have been correctly implementing our procedures and integrated management system for over 20 years.

Our ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management certification provides assurance that we have developed, maintained, and continuously improve our processes to reflect the ever-changing needs of both our employees and our clients. It shows we are ambitious with a commitment to quality and that we implement continual improvement across all aspects of our organisation.

Our ISO 14001:2015 Environmental certification supports our conscious efforts in reducing waste and our overall carbon footprint. It highlights our contributions to sustainability and how we are committed to closely monitoring and minimising our environmental impacts caused by workplace activities.

Our ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety certification shows the implementation of an occupational health and safety management system to protect our employees, visitors and third parties who we work closely with.

Our UKAS Accreditation is indicative of our team’s proactive approach and contributions to our management system with our Office Manager taking ownership of the constant improvement and ongoing development of the system and our Senior Corrosion Engineer for hosting the on-site inspection stage of the audit.

Assured Cyber Security for Client Data

We are very proud to announce that Corroconsult UK Limited have achieved re-certification for Cyber Essentials. Certification confirms that protocols set by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in the UK are in place.

Post-pandemic the landscape of the industry has changed, seeing increased working from home / working remotely - this certification provides assurance to our clients that our cyber security protocols will continue to protect against the ever evolving, sophisticated and major cyber-attacks regardless of where or how we operate.

We would like to express our thanks to Molly Nock and John Tuckey for their efforts in particular towards ensuring that we continue to provide our clients with the assurances they require with respect to cyber security.

Cathodic Protection - Monitoring and Maintenance

This is the sixth in a series of presentations by the South East Branch of PIG in the field of external pipe corrosion and cathodic protection.

This presentation explains the requirements and the practicalities of pipeline cathodic protection monitoring and maintenance for non-specialists.

It explains why the monitoring is necessary and what maintenance is recommended. The main pipeline above-ground survey techniques are discussed.

An example of the very latest technical developments in the reporting of routine monitoring and maintenance surveys is given.

Demonstrating Careers in Corrosion

Who: Richard Lindley - Projects Director

Where: Parkside Primary School, Stafford, UK

When: Monday 04 July 2022

It was my pleasure to represent Corroconsult UK Limited at the Careers Fayre held at Parkside Primary School.

We know that children engage best with hands-on and visual representation so we developed a number of basic experiments to show the children how coatings and cathodic protection work, series and parallel circuits and a real-time demonstration of the affects of stray current corrosion.

We discussed the potential for worldwide travel, immersing yourselves in different cultures and challenging environments - from deserts to jungles to offshore.

It is important for us as a company to inspire not only the next generation of corrosion engineers, but to stimulate interest in STEM careers in general.

Aspects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) play a major part in everyday life for Corroconsult personnel and we hope that through our continued participation with events such as these that children can see the potential in pursuing a STEM career.

IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery

Corroconsult’s Technical Director is a co-author of a new paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery.  It was published on 09 April 2022.

The paper is a collaboration between Dr. David Boteler (Land and Minerals Sector,  Natural Resources, Ottawa, Canada), Prof. C. Charalambos (University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus) and Ken Lax (Corroconsult UK Ltd).

Previously unexplained instances of AC corrosion may be due to the effects of harmonics, which may not have been taken into account in the mathematical modelling and the interference mitigation design.  The presence of harmonics may not be apparent when taking voltage and current density measurements.

The paper gives a worked example of how to perform the calculations, which will be helpful for cathodic protection and pipeline electrical interference specialists.

Abstract:

Electromagnetic interference to pipelines and railways from AC sources has long been a cause for concern. Methods and standards have evolved to enable calculations of the voltages produced under different conditions. These take into account the AC frequency, the soil resistivity and the pipeline characteristics. However, the approximations presented in some standards fail to take into account the phase relationship of the currents in the AC conductors and how that affects the induced currents in the earth. This paper re-examines these issues by introducing a revised complex image method for 3-phase systems that provides a simple and accurate way to include the influence of induced currents in calculations of the induced emf in nearby conductors. Normal positive sequence 3-phase currents produce fields in neighbouring conductors that tend to cancel. For the associated image currents in the earth, the cancellation is so complete that they have no influence on the induced emf. A different situation occurs with the zero sequence currents that occur during fault conditions and triplen harmonics. These currents are in phase, so there is none of the cancelling effect and the contributions from each conductor add to give a larger induced emf in a neighbouring conductor.

Published in: IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery ( Volume: 37, Issue: 2, April 2022)

Page(s): 851 - 859

Date of Publication: 09 April 2021

ISSN Information:

DOI: 10.1109/TPWRD.2021.3072355

Contact Corroconsult UK Ltd for further information.

Corporate Partnership with Nature's SAFE

Corroconsult UK Limited are delighted to announce our Corporate Partnership with Nature’s SAFE.

Nature’s SAFE is one of Europe’s dedicated facilities capable of the long-term storage of live cells from animal species that are at the greatest risk of extinction.

Working with leading reproductive scientists and cryobiologists, they use state-of-the-art methods to preserve cells in a way that maintains viability, allowing them to be thawed and used to establish pregnancies, restoring endangered animal species.

​Nature’s SAFE, through its Living Biobank, is on a mission to safeguard these endangered animal populations for future generations and to realise our vision of a healthy planet.

Our initial contribution to this worthy charity ensures that we guarantee the preservation of one species from extinction, which is only a small step towards protecting the biodiversity of our planet, but the first on a journey that we are incredibly excited to be a part of.

Exploring alternatives to the 4 Pin Wenner Soil Resistivity Method

Introduction

The Wenner four-pin method is the most widely recognised method for soil resistivity testing, using four pins at equal distance from each other along a straight line. This method has been primarily used in geological surveying since it was first developed in 1915 by Dr. Frank Wenner.

Beyond Wenner’s initial work there have been several developments since, identifying proven alternative methods for measuring soil resistivity.

This post has been put together noting the key factors and necessary information for three of the lesser known methods of soil resistivity testing.

Equatorial Dipole-Dipole Soil Resistivity

• To a depth of 0.5m, with a dipole length of 1m, the depth curve sensitivity is considerably higher than the standard 4 pin Wenner method.

• At a depth greater than 0.5m, the sensitivity-depth-curve decreases exponentially.

• The required maximum depth reading shall not exceed 2.5 metres (due to loss of sensitivity).

• A length of 0.5m with a dipole length of 0.3m provides the most sensitive-depth-curve.

• Evidently, Equatorial Dipole-Dipole soil resistivity testing is most efficient at shallower depths with shorter dipole lengths.

• With this method, you can penetrate further into the ground than the dipole-dipole standard array (so long as the length of the survey line is the same).

• Although the equatorial array penetrates further into the ground, doing so will generate a loss in signal as the depth is expanded, which greatly limits its use.

• This method is incredibly useful for situations where multiple readings of top-surface soil is required to a maximum depth of 2.5 metres.

Summary

Ideal for shallow depths requiring highly sensitive applications out in the field.

Wenner Schlumberger Soil Resistivity

• A combination of the Wenner (most widely used method for soil resistivity and earthing purposes) and Schlumberger methods (high voltage signal, less sensitive.)

• A large difference between this method and the more commonly know ‘Wenner’ method is that using Wenner, the pins are all equally distanced apart whereas in Schlumberger, the pins are not equally distanced and primarily, only two electrodes are moved to take a new reading whereas using Wenner, all four electrodes need to be moved to take a new reading.

• This method of soil resistivity testing is best suited to increased depth requirments due to the high voltage signal.

• Less applicable for shallower, more sensitive operations.

• More practical to use when the task is to plot soil resistivity at several different depths.

• Best suited for ground water and aggregate mineral terrain.

• This method also takes less time to deploy than the standard Wenner array when changing pin spacing (i.e. moving two outer pins as opposed to all four pins).

Summary

Ideal for greater depths, with reduction in time spent altering pin spacings when compared to standard 4 Pin Wenner technique.

Dipole-Dipole Soil Resistivity

• A dipole is a pair of oppositely charged electrodes that are so close together that the electrical field forms a single electrical field rather than a field from 2 different electric poles.

• To conduct a survey using the dipole-dipole method, you place a large number of electrode stakes out with equal spacing between the stakes. i.e. 100 electrodes spaced 1 metre apart – This would generate a 99 metre long profile of the surveyed area to a depth of 1 metre.

• To collect the high number of depth samples from the pin array, specialist equipment with a multiple core harness is required.

• The apparent resistivity data is plotted at the midpoint between the 2 dipoles and at a depth half the distance between the 2 dipoles.

• Typically 99 readings are measured and stored in approximately 15 minutes (this excludes the installation of the pin array and connection of the cable harness).

Summary

Ideal for high sensitivity measurement at increased depths. However, specialist equipment is necessary.

Pin Brazing for Cathodic Protection Applications - A Beginner's Guide

Pin Brazing is ideally suited for many applications including continuity bonding between pipes, across flanges, connection of cathodic protection test and current carrying cables and connection of bracelet galvanic anodes etc.

The Pin Brazing equipment is very robust, easy to operate, easy to maintain and ideal for on site works.

The kit is powered by a 36V DC battery pack (or suitable welding generator when using the generator gun) capable of delivering 240A for use with fused brazing pins, ceramic ferrules and cable lugs.

With the earth device in place the gun trigger is depressed and after approximately 1.5 to 2 seconds the circuit is mechanically broken as the fuse wire breaks, and the brazing pin is held into the molten pool of brazing alloy that rapidly cools into a homogenous and very strong connection.

This short video demonstrates the three key steps to applying a successful pin braze to a structure for cathodic protection cabling.

The video has been presented in slow motion to better highlight each of the processes.

A Pipeline Designer's Guide to Cathodic Protection

As part of our ongoing free webinar series with The Pipeline Industries Guild, our latest presentation “Pipeline Designer’s Guide to Cathodic Protection” is now available on YouTube.

The aim of the presentation is to provide information to pipeline designers on the factors that can influence the effectiveness of the external corrosion protection system - coatings, cathodic protection and electrical interference.

The technical information is given in such a way that it is understandable to people that are not corrosion specialists.

High Speed AC Railways & Pipelines - Corrosion and Safety Risks

This presentation was made by Ken Lax, Technical Director of Corroconsult, on behalf of the Pipeline Industries Guild (PIG) Onshore Panel as part of their ongoing free webinar series.

The aim of the presentation is to provide information to pipeline operators about the risk of accelerated corrosion and unacceptable touch potentials caused by high speed AC trains.

The presentation covers the following:

• Corrosion risks

• Risks to Personnel and the Public

• Induction

• Conduction

• Mitigation

The presentation makes reference to the relevant sections of the following standards:

• ISO 18086

• BS EN 50443

• IEC 60050-195-05-09

• BS EN 50122-2

• BS EN 50162

• ISO 21857

Additional content for the presentation prepared by Richard Lindley (Corroconsult), Matthew Bamber (Corroconsult) and Charalambos Charalambous (University of Cyprus).