Metacor Q & As
What’s a corrosion allowance?
The sectional thickness designated expendable to corrosion. It does not necessarily follow that the element will be unfit for purpose when the corrosion allowance is exhausted.
Piping wall thickness specification usually includes a ‘corrosion allowance’. However, it is not specified that this is for internal or external corrosion. The temptation is to ignore quantifying values for internal and external corrosion allowance, but this risks not meeting performance targets for both. The important thing is to recognise that corrosion will occur, and set limits to measure against.
External Corrosion Management Ltd was established in 2001 to provide a solution to the problem of defining scopes for offshore fabric maintenance projects. Scopes which were safe, rational and cost-effective.
Previously, external corrosion management had been an expensive source of frustration to asset managers. Caught between the conflicting demands of cost reduction and safety standards, maintenance had often been carried out on an ad-hoc basis – and frequently deferred or eliminated altogether, based on subjective judgements without the benefit of informed risk assessment.
Through an expert system, which quantifies and predicts external corrosion and provides justifiable coatings maintenance options, ECM puts the asset manager back in control of paint maintenance programmes.
