Consensus Study Report

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This activity was supported by contracts between the National Academy of Sciences and the American Society of Civil Engineers, Association for Mechanically Stabilized Earth, Federal Highway Administration, International Association of Foundation Drilling, National Science Foundation, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-69267-0
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-69267-9
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/26686

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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Corrosion of Buried Steel at New and In-Service Infrastructure. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26686.

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COMMITTEE ON THE CORROSION OF BURIED STEEL AT NEW AND IN-SERVICE INFRASTRUCTURE

SCOTT A. ANDERSON (Chair), BGC Engineering

MERSEDEH AKHOONDAN, HDR Engineering

AZIZ ASPHAHANI (NAE), QuesTek Innovations LLC¹

SUSAN E. BURNS, Georgia Institute of Technology

HOMERO CASTANEDA-LOPEZ, Texas A&M University

KENNETH L. FISHMAN, McMahon and Mann Consulting Engineering and Geology, P.C.

GERALD S. FRANKEL, The Ohio State University

STACEY KULESZA, Texas State University

BRENDA J. LITTLE, B.J. Little Corrosion Consulting, LLC

RANDALL W. POSTON (NAE), Pivot Engineers

ELIZABETH RUTHERFORD, Energy Transfer

Staff

SAMMANTHA L. MAGSINO, Senior Program Officer

ERIK B. SVEDBERG, Scholar

MICAH D. HIMMEL, Senior Program Officer

RACHEL SILVERN, Program Officer (until September 2020)

MARGO REGIER, Program Officer

NICHOLAS D. ROGERS, Deputy Director, Finance

CYNDI GETNER, Financial Business Associate

EMILY BERMUDEZ, Program Assistant

COURTNEY DeVANE, Program Coordinator (until January 2022)

SARAH HAEDRICH, Senior Program Assistant (until May 2022)

ELLENI GIORGIS, Program Assistant (until May 2021)

__________________

¹ Resigned June 2021.

COMMITTEE ON GEOLOGICAL AND GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

ALLEN MARR (NAE) (Chair), Geocomp Corporation

SCOTT ANDERSON, BGC Engineering

PEDRO ARDUINO, University of Washington

ROSALYN BERNE, University of Virginia

CRAIG A. DAVIS, CA Davis Engineering

RULA DEEB, Geosyntec Consultants

JAMI DWYER, Barr Engineering Company

YOUSSEF M. HASHASH (NAE), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

OLADOYIN KOLAWOLE, New Jersey Institute of Technology

JAMES K. MITCHELL (NAS/NAE), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

JOHN STAMATAKOS, Southwest Research Institute

Staff

SAMMANTHA MAGSINO, Senior Program Officer

CYNDI GETNER, Financial Business Associate

EMILY BERMUDEZ, Program Assistant

BOARD ON EARTH SCIENCES AND RESOURCES

ISABEL P. MONTAÑEZ (NAS) (Chair), University of California, Davis

THORSTEN W. BECKER, The University of Texas at Austin

BRENDA B. BOWEN, The University of Utah

NELIA W. DUNBAR, New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources

RODNEY C. EWING (NAE), Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford University

MARY (MISSY) FEELEY, ExxonMobil Exploration Company (retired)

ZELMA MAINE-JACKSON, Washington State Department of Ecology

MICHAEL MANGA (NAS), University of California, Berkeley

PATRICIA McDOWELL, University of Oregon

HARVEY J. MILLER, The Ohio State University

JEFFREY N. RUBIN, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (retired)

JAMES (JIM) A. SLUTZ, National Petroleum Council

ELIZABETH J. WILSON, Dartmouth College

Staff

DEBORAH A. GLICKSON, Director

SAMMANTHA L. MAGSINO, Senior Program Officer

MARGO REGIER, Program Officer

JONATHAN TUCKER, Associate Program Officer

CHARLES BURGIS, Associate Program Officer

NICHOLAS D. ROGERS, Deputy Director, Finance

NATIONAL MATERIALS AND MANUFACTURING BOARD

THERESA KOTANCHEK (NAE) (Chair), Evolved Analytics, LLC

JOHN KLIER (NAE) (Vice Chair), University of Massachusetts Amherst

KEVIN ANDERSON (NAE), Brunswick Corporation

CRAIG ARNOLD, Princeton University

FELICIA J. BENTON-JOHNSON, Georgia Institute of Technology

WILLIAM B. BONVILLIAN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

JIAN CAO (NAE), Northwestern University

ELLIOT L. CHAIKOF (NAM), Harvard University

JULIE A. CHRISTODOULOU, Office of Naval Research (retired)

TERESA CLEMENT, Raytheon Missile Systems

STEPHEN FORREST (NAS/NAE), University of Michigan

AMIT GOYAL (NAE), State University of New York at Buffalo

JULIA GREER, California Institute of Technology

SATYANDRA K. GUPTA, University of Southern California

BRADLEY A. JAMES, Exponent, Inc.

THOMAS R. KURFESS (NAE), Georgia Institute of Technology

MICHAEL (MICK) MAHER, Maher & Associates, LLC

RAMULU MAMIDALA, University of Washington

SHIRLEY MENG, University of Chicago

OMKARAM (OM) NALAMASU (NAE), Applied Materials, Inc.

MATTHEW J. ZALUZEC, University of Florida, Gainesville

Staff

MICHELLE SCHWALBE, Director

ERIK B. SVEDBERG, Scholar

NEERAJ GORKHALY, Associate Program Officer

AMISHA JINANDRA, Associate Program Officer

JOSEPH PALMER, Senior Project Assistant

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD

THERESA KOTANCHEK (NAE) (Chair), Evolved Analytics, LLC

JOHN KLIER (NAE) (Vice Chair), University of Massachusetts Amherst

Staff

MICAH D. HIMMEL, Senior Program Officer, Consensus and Advisory Studies

NANCY M. WHITING, Senior Program Officer, Technical Activities

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Acknowledgments

This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.

We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:

Although the reviewers have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by GEORGE M. HORNBERGER, Vanderbilt University, and CLYDE L. BRIANT, Brown University. Appointed by the National Academies, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.

The committee benefited from the input of numerous individuals who gave presentations during its open sessions and participated in its information-gathering workshop. Appendix B provides the names of meeting presenters and workshop participants.

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Contents

SUMMARY

1 INTRODUCTION

The Committee’s Charge and Interpretation

Common Types of Steel Used in Buried Applications

Information Gathering and Report Organization

2 FUNDAMENTALS OF STEEL CORROSION, INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS AND APPROACHES, AND SOURCES OF CORROSION DATA

Fundamentals of Buried Steel Corrosion

Buried-Steel Applications

General Industry Approaches to Protection Against Steel Corrosion

Microorganisms

Sources of Corrosion Data

3 SUBSURFACE ENVIRONMENT

Soil

Rock Environments

Engineered Fills

Grout, Concrete, and Flowable Fill

4 CORROSION OF BURIED STEEL

General Corrosion

Localized Corrosion Mechanisms for Buried Steel

Environmentally Induced Cracking

Microbially Influenced Corrosion

Relationship Between Corrosion and the Environment

5 CORROSION PROTECTION FOR BURIED STEEL

Physical Barriers

Microbially Influenced Corrosion and Coatings

Cathodic Protection

Control of Environment

6 STANDARD AND EVOLVING SUBSURFACE CHARACTERIZATION

Standard Practice Before and During Installation

Standard Practice During Operations and After Failure

Emerging Practices: Use of Decision Support Tools

Aspirational Biocementation Methods for Control of Environment

7 STANDARD AND EVOLVING MONITORING PRACTICES

Common Monitoring Techniques

Emerging (Aspirational) Opportunities

8 PREDICTIVE MODELING

Empirical Models for Corrosion Rate Based on Subsurface Properties

Empirical Models for Metal Loss (Romanoff Models)

Analytical and Numerical Modeling for General and Localized Forms of Corrosion

Numerical Models for Predicting Stray Current

Modeling Cathodic Protection Potential and Current Profiles, Polarization, and Current Density

Emerging and Evolving Trends

9 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Improved Communication Through Consistent Terminology

Multidisciplinary Research

Comprehensive Longitudinal Experimentation

Data Analytics

Decision Support Systems

Indirect Observation and Opportunistic Data Collection

A Data Clearinghouse

Concluding Thoughts and Moving Forward

REFERENCES

APPENDIXES

A Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

B Meeting and Workshop Agendas

C Acronyms and Abbreviations