A laboratory cell set-up was designed and constructed for the simulation of corrosion under insulation (CUI) on a pipe section at elevated temperature. The CUI cell consisted of six carbon steel ring specimens separated by insulation spacers and held together by blind flanged pipe sections on both ends. Thermal insulation which was placed around the
testing section provided the annular space to retain the test environment. The ring specimens were used as test electrodes in two separate electrochemical cells. One cell was used as the control while the other was used to test applied protective coatings. Corrosion measurements were made using both electrochemical polarization resistance
and mass loss data under isothermal and cyclic wet/dry test conditions. The test cell was used to (1) successfully simulate CUI in the laboratory, (2) evaluate the corrosivity and different modes of corrosion observed with CUI and (3) evaluate proprietary coatings for minimizing CUI under simulated CUI condhions.
Keywords: corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, insulation, CUI, isothermal, polarization resistance, mass loss, coatings