Acoustic emission characterization of pitting corrosion in crude oil storage tank

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to prove that acoustic emission is the non destructive test, which useful to detect the pitting corrosion in the crude oil storage tank. However, the electrochemical analysis is done to study the corrosion rate in the crude oil of various places. The crude oil is from Dulang, Bintulu, Miri Light, Tapis and Labuan. The electrochemical study has show that the corrosion rate of ASTM 516 grade 70 exposed to each various locations of crude oil was very low. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is no significant effect of crude oil to the surface of ASTM 516 grade 70 steel as long as if there is no constituent aggressive anion present in crude oils. Simulation technique is done to prove that the acoustic emission able to detect the signal from pitting corrosion. This is done by applying the low voltage and low current on the specimen. Meanwhile, for the comparison between the acoustic emission signal and noise is done to identified and differentiate the amplitude range between them.