This paper is an effort to provide information about the types and structure of the process vessels used in petroleum industries, concepts for the use of cathodic protection, as well as various factors involved in designing galvanic anode protection systems, such as surface area for protection, coating breakdown factors, current density considerations, electrolyte resistivity, anode selection criteria, and design life considerations.
The cathodic protection designing of process vessels is difficult, critical, and hazardous to the environment due to enclosed and extreme electrolyte conditions of non-ambient temperature, pressure, velocity, and chemical compositions. As these conditions cause adverse effects like high corrosion activity, cathodic protection depolarization, and higher anode consumption, it is important to take special care in design. Another limitation is how the cathodic protection system’s effectiveness cannot be monitored apart from the anode consumption rate. It is therefore difficult to evaluate the cathodic protection performance and life.