Corrosion Simulation and Optimization of Sacrificial Anode Protection of a Buried Pipeline Using Teaching Learning Based Optimization (TLBO) Algorithm

The permanent presence of metallic pipelines in the soil produces electrochemical reactions, which leads to the corrosion activity and thus, an adequate cathodic protection strategy is required.The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of inductive coupling between an EHV overhead power line and a buried metallic pipeline in normal operation; and to optimize a sacrificial anode cathodic protection system from corrosion evolution using a new efficient meta-heuristic algorithm of Teaching Learning Based Optimization (TLBO).The results obtained indicate that the induced voltage resulting from the inductive coupling exceeds the limit recommended by the majority of international standards; the calculated value of corrosion current density presents a relevant parameter having a significant effect on the corrosion rate and metal loss.Therefore; the selected optimization algorithm proves to be accurate in determining the parameters associated with the design of the sacrificial anode cathodic protection system and is able to meet the current requirement criterion necessary for the protection implemented and to ensure the stability and optimal performance of the hydrocarbon transportation pipeline system.