The Marine Renewable Energies sector (MRE) is a growing market that poses new challenges for structures durability. If cathodic protection is proven prevention against corrosion in marine applications for long durations, typical geometries of MRE installations pose new challenges. Cathodic protection performances are indeed not well known for complex geometries such confined areas. In the frame of ADUSCOR project, led by the Technological Research Institute Jules Verne (France) in partnership with DCNS, STX, Alstom and CETIM, a study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of modeling protection cathodic confrontation between testing and simulation models. Numerical simulation of cathodic protection using PROCOR software using integral equations border, has so far proved effective in modeling of cathodic protection for geometries in contact with large electrolyte volumes. However, few studies tend to show its ability to model confined areas. To check the efficiency of modeling, different S235 steel assemblies, simulating confined areas were carried out. These assemblies have been provided with several of electrochemical cells for carrying out potential measurements and polarization curves at different points in confined areas. The acquired polarization curves were then used as input data to perform numerical simulation. Then, these results were compared to a modeling performed using a standard polarization curve of a non-alloy steel in seawater and potential measurements performed during testing. Thus, the different results obtained in the study reveal: • A poor correlation of the numerical simulation carried out with a standard curve, measured against the potential. • A good correlation between numerical modeling performed with polarization curves obtained during the tests and the measured potential. The model is then used to clearly predict areas with under-protection. Thus, these results show the importance of the input data in the simulation of cathodic protection and ability to learn about the criticality of protection in confined environments.
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