Ground anode prepacked with backfill in a flexible structure for cathode protection with impressed currents
AssigneeOronzio de Nora S.A.
InventorsGiuseppe Bianchi, Gianluigi Mussinelli, Giuseppe Faita
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Flexible ground anode prepacked with backfill for protection of a cathode with impressed currents, made up by a flexible anodic conductor (1), surrounded by backfill and coaxially centered as to the flexible external casing (2) by means of spacers (3), which function also as current distributors to the casing itself, and supporting the anodic elements (4). The flexible casing (2) and elements (3) are constituted by metallic materials corrodable by the current.
Claims8
A ground anode prepacked with backfill for cathodic protection against impressed currents comprising:
- (a) a corrodable and flexible entirely metallic external casing;
- (b) a flexible conductor coaxially centered as to said external casing;
- (c) one or more anodic elements surrounding said flexible conductor, said one or more anodic elements being of such length and spaced at such intervals along said cable so as to maintain said conductor and anodic elements in a flexible condition;
- (d) one or more spacers connected at lengthwise intervals between the flexible external casing and said anodic elements, said spacers functioning to hold said anodic elements coaxial relative to said external casing;
- (e) prepacked backfill compacted within said external casing and surrounding said anodic elements and flexible conductor;
- and
- (f) sealing elements at each end of the casing.
A cathode protection process for metallic structures subject to electrochemical corrosion comprising:
- (a) connecting the metallic structure to the negative pole of an electric current source;
- (b) constructing an anodic structure by coaxially centering one or more flexible anodic elements surrounding a flexible conductor within a corrodable flexible entirely metallic external casing by using one or more spacers between said one or more flexible anodic elements and said flexible entirely metallic casing;
- (c) packing said anodic structure with backfill between said external casing and said one or more flexible anodic elements;
- (d) sealing said anodic structure;
- and
- (e) connecting said anodic structure to the positive pole of said electric current source.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.