Dilute Flowable Backfill for Corrosion Mitigation of Buried Steel Pipe: Experimental Procedure

摘要

Corrosion of buried, ferrous-based metallic piping is a significant and ongoing expense on Army and DoD installations for sewer/industrial waste lines, potable water distribution lines, heat distribution piping and other assorted piping. The focus of this study is to evaluate the use of cementitious material, flowable backfills known as Controlled Low Strength Materials (CLSM), to completely encase buried steel pipes. The highly alkaline environment is known to create a passivated, corrosion-mitigating layer on the surface of the steel. Experiments have been set up to evaluate the corrosion mitigation effects of mixtures of flowable fill and soil-cement. The flowable backfills were studied with and without cathodic protection. A field evaluation at Fort Hood, TX has been operating concurrently with a lab evaluation held at U.S. Army ERDC-CERL. The results are not yet complete, and will be available in a future manuscript, but the expectation is for a significantly decreased corrosion rate with flowable backfills in conjunction with cathodic protection.