Cathodic Protection Training Course



Module 13

Cathodic protection and corrosion currents

Measurable and immeasurable electrolytic paths.

It has proved impossible to measure the paths of electrical charges through the mass earth electrolyte.

The reason for this can be seen in Kirchhoffs laws combined with Gibs Free Energy




This is why it is important to really understand how energy functions in relation to the way that instruments work.

It is also important to understand that mass earth has no resistance but that it is composed of matter that has variety of resistances.

I once had two corrosion engineers suggest to me that it would be possible to measure the electrical currents in the sea in the sea with a version of a giant clamp meter composed of a hoop of magnetised wire through which we could measure the passage of charges.

There have also been attempts to measure the resistance of the ground and apply Ohms law with the voltage to work out the current.





The paper presented to the Tasmanian Corrosion Conference, that is dicussed in Module 05 of this course, shows that this cannot work.