External Corrosion Direct Assessment

Key Benefits:

Risk Mitigation & Analysis
As part of structured pipeline integrity plan, ECDA improves safety by assessing the impact of external corrosion and providing owners and operators with the data and knowledge to address threats.

Compliance

ECDA is a key part of any compliant pipeline integrity management program. Allied Corrosion Industries, Inc. has assembled a group of pipeline assessment specialists to provide cost effective solutions and compliance with regulatory requirements associated with DOT/OPS Title 49 CFR Part 195 (Liquid Pipelines) and CFR Part 192 (Natural Gas Transmission Pipelines).

What is External Corrosion Direct Assessment?

As part of our full-service corrosion control capabilities, Allied Corrosion Industries, Inc. offers the ability to manage your entire pipeline integrity program, or to provide any of the processes associated with ECDA (External Corrosion Direct Assessment). (ECDA): As defined by the NACE Standard RP0502-2002, External Corrosion Direct Assessment (ECDA) is “a structured process that is intended to improve safety by assessing and reducing the impact of external corrosion on pipeline integrity”. This process is a continuous, structured part of a pipeline integrity plan.

Process

The ECDA process consists of four major steps:

1. Pre-Assessment

Allied Corrosion Industries' integrity assessment professionals are well suited to the task of collecting historic and current data to determine if ECDA is feasible and to select the appropriate indirect inspection methods for each individual pipeline integrity program. During this phase, we determine ECDA regions. ECDA is not always feasible on or accessible on all pipelines, and should be only one part of a full pipeline integrity management program.

Pre-Assessment in ECDA provides us with an in-depth understanding of your pipeline system. The deeper our understanding in this phase, the more we, and all operators/owners involved, will get out of the survey and direct assessment.

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2. Indirect Inspection

Once a thorough Pre-Assessment phase is complete, we're prepared to move into the indirect inspection phase, with a full understanding of your pipeline's risk factors, and the tools needed to address them. A combination of two or more of the following indirect or above-ground inspection techniques are used to identify coating faults, anomalies, and/or corrosion activity:

Close Interval Surveys (CIS)
Direct Current Voltage Gradient (DCVG)
Alternating Current Voltage Gradient (ACVG)
Soil & Water Analysis
Electromagnetic Surveys
Pearson Surveys
Global Positioning Surveys (GPS)
Depth of Cover Surveys (DOC)

3. Direct Examination

After completion of the indirect inspections, the assessment specialists at Allied Corrosion analyze the data to select sites for excavations and pipe surface evaluations. The direct examination's data is examined together with prior data to determine the existence and severity of external corrosion on the pipeline. Our integrity specialists can evaluate the coating performance, provide corrosion measurements, pipe strength calculations, corrosion rate estimates, and root cause analysis during this step.

4. Post Assessment

This step involves analysis and summation of data collected from the previous three external corrosion direct assessment steps to determine the effectiveness of the ECDA processes, establish pipeline integrity, and set future reassessments intervals.

Need a Qualified Corrosion Expert to perform an ECDA?

Allied Corrosion has the qualifications and the specific technical expertise required to assist you with any of the appropriate ECDA filed services or manage your entire Pipeline Integrity Management program. Allied Corrosion has assembled a group of field-proven pipeline assessment specialists to provide cost effective solutions and compliance with regulatory requirements associated with DOT/OPS Title 49 CFR Part 195.452 (Liquid Pipelines) and CFR Part 192 (Natural Gas Transmission Pipelines).

Allied Corrosion Industries, Inc., maintains a qualified and experienced staff of registered professional engineers, NACE certified Corrosion Specialists, Cathodic Protection Specialists, Senior Corrosion Technologists, and Corrosion Technicians. Our staff has more than two centuries combined experience in the corrosion control field. Corrosion prevention solutions are our business - our only business!

All work is performed in accordance with the NACE Standard RP0502-2002, “Pipeline External Corrosion Direct Assessment Methodology”.