ScoreAnalyzer

Application
Demonstration problem #4

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater:

An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™

The Application

• This application will show how to enter a water sample analysis for
typical seawater and show its affect on the corrosion of stainless steel.
Oxygen will be introduced to show how the corrosion rates change.

A standard seawater analysis will be reconciled for electroneutrality and for pH. This
analysis will then be placed in contact with 304 stainless steel and a corrosion rate
survey performed in temperature. The corrosion rate versus temperature will be
displayed. The probability of localized corrosion will also be displayed.

A second analysis will then be performed with air in contact with the seawater. Air,
of course, contains oxygen. The effects of oxygen on the corrosion rate will be
determined.

The power of OLI/SCOREAnalyzer becomes apparent as we study the chemistry of

oxidation and reduction.

OLI, Value Through Technology

OLI Systems, Inc www. olisystems. com 973-539-4996

108 American Road
Morris Plains, NJ 07950
Tour Conventions
In this tour, and all subsequent tours, when action is required by the
user, the instruction will be in Bold and Italic type. When you are
referred to a feature on a screen, the information will be Bold and
underlined. Any mouse clicks are left-mouse button clicks unless
otherwise noted. This is summarized below:

Type Face User Action

Bold and Italic The user is required to enter this
information
Bold and Underlined The user is directed to look for this
feature in the program windows
Click Left-mouse button
Right-Click Right-mouse button

The Tour Starts Here

1. Using seawater
Locate the Score Analyze icon on the desktop and double-click it.

Figure 1

This will bring up the main SCORE Analyzer window. It is similar to other OLI Analyzer windows.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-2

 Figure 2

Locate the “Add SCORE Analysis” Icon

Figure 3

Double-click the icon to add a new analysis. This will display the main analysis window.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-3

 Figure 4

We will now point out some features of this window. The first is the tree-view:

Figure 5

The tree-view displays the relative positions of the objects in this document. In this case, the
Analysis1 is part of the overall document. As we create more objects that directly relate to this
analysis we will see the tree-view expand to include them.

Figure 6

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-4

The Operating Conditions section defines the conditions for the sample. The default values are
displayed. You may change then as required.

Figure 7

The Water Analysis box is where we enter the concentrations of the cations and anions in solution.
Neutral species can also be entered. The yellow field for water indicates that we can not change this
value and it will be calculated. The radio buttons for No pH and Use pH allow us to reconcile to a
specific pH. The Specs… button allows us to alter the method of reconciliation as required.

Figure 8

A Gas Analysis that may be in contact with the water analysis can be entered here. We will look at
this section in more detail later in the tour.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-5

 Figure 9

The Oil Analysis section allows you enter a oil sample in a manner similar to the gas analysis. We
will not be using this section in this tour.

Figure 10

The Phase Proportions section allows us to specify the total flow and the ratios of gas to liquid.

Figure 11

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-6

This final section is where the reconciliation takes place. Once that has occurred we may then add
scaling calculations and corrosion rate calculations. We will review this in more detail later in the
tour. The Summary section shows what has been accomplished thus far in our calculations.

Enter the following operating conditions:

Temperature 15 oC
Pressure 1 atmosphere.

Enter the following cation and anion concentrations in the Water Analysis section make sure the
Basis box indicates Mass Fraction and click the Use pH button.

Na+1 10700 ppm

Mg+2 1300 ppm
Ca+2 400 ppm

Cl-1 19000 ppm

SO4-2 2750 ppm
HCO3-1 150 ppm

pH 8.0
The input should look like the following figure:

Figure 12
Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-7
At this point we have enough information to start our reconciliation, click the Calculate button.
After the reconciliation is complete, several buttons now become active:

Figure 13

Many of the features of these buttons are covered in other tours. Click the Corrosion Rates button.

Figure 14

This is the main window for the rates calculation. The layout is the same as for the Corrosion
Analyzer tours. Notice that the Tree-View has expanded to show you that we now have a new object
for the rates calculation.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-8

Click the Type of rate calculation button in the upper right-hand corner of the window.

Figure 15

Change the type from Single Point Rate to Temperature

Figure 16

Figure 17

Now click on the Specs… button to change the range of the temperature calculation.

Figure 18

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-9

As we have done, change the starting temperature (0 oC) and the ending temperature (50 oC) and
change the increment to 10. Click on the OK button.

Locate the Flow Conditions section.

Figure 19

We need to change the conditions from Static to Pipe Flow.

Figure 20

We will keep the default flows. We now need to change the contact surface. Locate the Contact
Surface region in the window:

Figure 21

We are interested in 304 Stainless Steel. Click the box to activate the drop-arrow and scroll down to
find 304 stainless steel

Figure 22
Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-10
 Figure 23

We are now ready to calculate. Click the Calculate button now.

When the OLI Orbit closes, we are ready to review the results. If a small calculation window
appeared, close it.

We now will click on the Gen. Corr. Rate tab.

Figure 24

This shows the rate of general (uniform) corrosion as a function of temperature.

Now click on the Localized Corr. tab.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-11

 Figure 25

This plot shows the tendency for a pit to form. The lower line (squares, red) is the corrosion potential
which is an indication of the probability of a pit forming in the metal. The upper line (triangles,
green) the potential for repassivation. In other words, the potential for a pit to fill back in. If the
Repassivation potential (green) line is above the corrosion potential line (red), then if a pit should
form, then there is a high probability that the pit will heal itself an fill back in. If the corrosion
potential line (red) is above the repassivation potential (green) then if a pit should form, the pit
would continue to grow in size and depth. There seems to be a transition around 43 oC where the
corrosion potential exceeds the repassivation potential.

Now click on the Polarization Curve:

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-12

 Figure 26

It may be possible that no information is initially displayed. Click on the Customize button located
near the top right-hand corner of the display.

Figure 27

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-13

Use the Select all reactions button and then select the 10 oC point.

Figure 28

Click the OK button.

Figure 29

This plot displays the partial chemical processes taking place on the surface of the metal.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-14

The triangle represents the current and potential that goes into the corrosion rates calculation. The
partial processes taking place is the oxidation of the steel into solution and the reduction of water.

2. Aerated Water

We will now repeat our calculations but will include air in contact with the brine. Locate the
Analysis object in the tree-view.

Figure 30

Double-click the Analysis object to activate it.

This will return us to the Analysis window. Locate the Gas Composition section in the lower left-
hand section of the window:

Figure 31

We will star to add our air in this section. Air consists mostly of Nitrogen, some oxygen and trace
other gases.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-15

We will start by adding Nitrogen. Enter N2 into the composition.

Figure 32

The first species entered will be the normalizing value. This is indicated by the yellow box. We can
not enter the composition of nitrogen. We need change the unit to atmospheres. Click the psia box
and change it to atmospheres, you may have to scroll up to find the unit.

Figure 33

Now we will at 0.21 atmospheres of Oxygen. Remember to switch units.

Figure 34

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-16

Finally we will add 0.0003 atmospheres of carbon dioxide.

Figure 35

Now that the gas composition has been defined. We need to inform the program how much gas is
present. Locate the Phase Proportions section.

Figure 36

Change the radio button to Ratios

Figure 37

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-17

We now want to make sure we have enough air in contact with our water sample. We will set the
Water/Gas ratio to 0.01. This gives us about 10 times more air than water. The sample should be
saturated with respect to the gas.

Figure 38

We have no changed our sample considerably. We now need to re-reconcile the sample. Click the
Reconcile button.

Once the calculation is complete, we can now create a new rates calculation. The set up for this
calculation is exactly the same as before. We will only summary what you need to change:

Calculation Type: Temperature

Range: 0 to 50 oC, 10 oC increments

Flow: Pipe Flow

Range : Default settings

Contact Surface: 304 stainless steel.

Click the Calculate button when ready.

When the calculation finishes, click on the Gen. Corr. Rate tab:

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-18

 Figure 39

The corrosion rate is approximately the same as for the non-aerated sample (See figure 24). This
would indicate that oxygen has little effect on the corrosion rate. This does not make sense
intuitively.

Click on the Localized Corr. tab.

Figure 40

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-19

This plot is considerably different from figure 25 which contained no oxygen. In this plot, the
corrosion potential is above the repassivation potential for all temperatures from 0 to 50 oC. This
indicates that if a pit should form, it would continue to grow.

Click on the Polarization tab:

Figure 41

By comparing to the previous polarization curve in figure 29, we can see that the amount of current
to cause the corrosion is much less here than in the case of no oxygen. Oxygen itself is taking place
in the reaction.

3. Conclusion and future study

We have shown you that the SCORE Analyzer is a valuable tool for looking at water and gas
analysis. The mixing of the samples is easily accomplished and looking at corrosion rates is a simple
task.

Future work would be to study the concentration effects of oxygen on the corrosion rates and to see
if changing the type of metal surface could mitigate the corrosion rates.

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-20

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-21
 OLI Systems, Inc.

American Enterprise Park

108 American Road
Morris Plains, NJ 07950

(973)539-4996

www.olisystems.com

Corrosion of Stainless Steel in Seawater: An introduction to the SCORE Analyzer™ • 1-22