The main gas operator in the Netherlands has about 12.000 Km of pipeline. Most of these
pipelines are situated in congested right-of-ways (ROWs), including 1500 V DC traction systems.
According to the Dutch Standards NEN EN 50162 and NEN EN 50122 it is likely that both
systems interfere on each other. Looking at the field measurements one can conclude that about
50% of the pipeline network (including 120 DC-drain unit’s that are operational) is under
interference of stray current.
To get a better understanding of DC-traction interference, the Company started a joint working
group with the Dutch railway. This technical committee aims at a better understanding of
theoretical and practical principals of DC-traction stray current. It tries to approve field procedures
and to get information on what has to be done to solve CP-related problems.
In this presentation it will be demonstrated how the field measurement technique that has been
designed will be used. It will be discussed how the measured data needs to be interpreted to
determine the rail resistance to earth and the risk area’s for the pipelines.
Keywords: Simulation software, cathodic protection, pipeline network, DC-traction interference