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Technotoy is an arrangement of instruments and electronic components that can be adjusted to represent the equivalent circuits of three pipeline cathodic protection systems.
It can be used to simulate field results from traditional pipe-to-soil measurements using small copper/copper-sulphate electrodes. It can be used to simulate DCVG and CIPS surveys. Technotoy is an equivalent circuit of every activity in cathodic protection engineering and is therefore a training tool and the first stage in analysing field data gathered by survey teams or remotely acquired. The following pictures show the components with descriptions of the functions and reasons why they are necessary. Instrument manufacturers and providers should study the whole of this consul to be sure that their products and services are based on real science and will produce the results that are claimed. |
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The impressed current is provided by a transformer rectifier to a groundbed made of electronic resisters built on a copper board that represents 'remote earth'.
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Three pipelines are represented by low value resistors in series to replicate the volts drop over the length of each pipeline and each includes a variable resistor that can be adjusted to replicate the total resistance of that section of pipeline. |
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The pipelines are mounted on high resistance pillars that includes a variable resistor so that the coating condition can be adjusted to incoming field data.
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The visible side of remote earth demonstrates that an almost infinite number of resistances in parallel have an almost infinite low resistance, confirmed by Kirchhoff's Laws. |
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Remote Earth can be visualised as an infinite number of resistors in Parallel
According to Kirchhoffs laws this will result in an infinitely low resistance. In order to replicate this I have used a copper sheet with a resistance so low that it cannot be measured from one contact point to another. Using a miniature half-cell (a ground contact electrode) we can replicate a dcvg and a CIPS survey. We can make 'pipe-to-soil potential' measurements including 'instant off' readings. The ground and the pipelines are connected to the breadboard. This unit was called ORAC by the first group of graduate students from UMIST that used it. ORAC was a talking computer that featured in a science fiction TV series Blake Seven |
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There is also an arrangement of electronic resistors that demonstrates that the placement of the ground contact electrode (known as a half-cell) changes the measurement known as the 'pipe-to-soil potential'. This shows the 'shell of resistances' described by many cathodic protection scientists. |
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The visible side of remote earth can be used to conduct DCVG and CIPS surveys using miniature ground contact electrodes and can also be used to demonstrate the Alexander Cell. |
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The electronic breadboard is used to emulate inputs and outputs to and from the remote earth copper sheet using electronic components that are used by electronics developers and manufacturers |
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Batteries are corrosion cells and are therefore useful to investigate the real effects of the impressed current on corrosion cells in a variety of configurations on the breadboard and the remote earth board. |
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An Oscilloscope is included to display wave forms as required by science in examining the credibility of 'instant off potentials' that are really voltages. |
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A trailing wire spool is used in simulation of CIPS and other surveys. |
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A data logger records voltages as required and another records corrosion currents when using the Alexander Cell. Two multimeters are used to examine Technotoy with respect to Gibbs Free energy and the Faraday Constant. |
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An analogue multimeter is available to examine the energy required to drive the magnet against the hair spring that causes the depression in the readings obtained prior to the use of digital meters. |
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A clamp meter is available to examine the current in each wire. |
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This is a pictorial progress plan that can be scrolled across the display showing the problem through the activities to the solution.
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