Introduction to Corrosion Monitoring

Corrosion can lead to failures in plant infrastructure and machines which are usually costly to repair, costly in terms of lost or contaminated product, in terms of environmental damage, and ultimately it may be costly in terms of human safety. Correct and effective corrosion monitoring strategies should be used as a proactive tool to assist with operating a plant more effectively, thereby prolonging its life and gaining optimum throughput. It also enables continuous monitoring of actual corrosion rates, allowing for timely preventative action if a variance is observed.

Corrosion monitoring systems vary significantly in complexity, from simple coupon exposures or hand held data loggers to fully integrated plant process surveillance units with remote data access and data management capabilities. Experience has shown that the potential cost savings resulting from the implementation of corrosion monitoring programs generally increase with the sophistication level (and cost) of the monitoring system. Corrosion monitoring is more complex than the monitoring of most other process parameters because:

It is therefore helpful to have previous history or even a rough estimate of the types of corrosion problems to be investigated. It is also advisable to use several complementary techniques rather than rely on a single monitoring method.