A Technical Review of Corrosion Prevention Strategies in Offshore Devices

This report investigated the main aspects of corrosion in the marine environment, from cause through to methods of prevention. This involved large amounts of reading and reviewing existing literature, which is abundant in such a well-established and researched field. Three primary themes of corrosion are presented; the mechanisms of how it occurs, the types of corrosion and the methods of prevention. This report demonstrates the electrochemistry of corrosion as well as various scenarios that can cause corrosion. Corrosion prevention provides a key area for this report and was therefore subcategorised into the following sections: marine coatings, impressed current and sacrificial anodes. These three themes were then explored in detail, looking into their applications, processes and some of the standards associated with their use in industry. To demonstrate the numerical aspect of cathodic protection a case study was presented to show the steps required to calculate the requirements of an impressed current system for a given structure. This report presents several recommendations for further work in regards to the marine renewable energy field and how the emergence of this technology may necessitate the implementation of new corrosion standards