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jpcl
PAINTSQUARE.COM JOURNAL OF PROTECTIVE COATINGS & LININGS

A JPCL eResource

CORROSION UNDER INSULATION

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2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

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CORROSION UNDER INSULATION

Copyright 2005 by
Technology Publishing Company
2100 Wharton Street, Suite 310
Pittsburgh, PA 15203

All Rights Reserved

This eBook may not be copied or redistributed

without the written permission of the publisher.

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

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Sponsored by

Contents
iv Introduction

1 Preventing CUI With Thermal-Spray Metal Coating

By Peter Bock, Advanced Polymerics, LLC

6 When Undercover Agents are Tested to the Limit: Coatings in Action (CIA)
and Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI) at High Temperature
By Mike ODonoghue, Ph.D., Vijay Datta, MS, Adrian Andrews, Ph.D.,
and Sean Adlem, International Paint LLC; Linda G. S. Gray, MSc, Coating Consultant;
Tara Chahl and Nicole de Varennes, CET, RAE Engineering and Inspection Ltd.;
and Bill Johnson, AScT, Acuren Group Inc.

24 When Undercover Agents Cant Stand the Heat: Coatings in Action

and the Netherworld of Corrosion Under Insulation
By Dr. Mike ODonoghue, Vijay Datta, MS Dr. Adrian Andrews, Sean Adlem and
Matthew Giardina, International Paint LLC; Nicole de Varennes, CET, Linda G.S. Gray,
MSc, and Damien Lachat, RAE Engineering and Inspection Ltd.; and Bill Johnson, AScT
Acuren Group Inc.

32 The No Big Bang Theory: An Introduction to Risk-Based Inspection Systems

for Mitigating CUI in Process Equipment and Piping
By Peter Bock, Capital Inspectors

39 Corrosion under Insulation: Basics and Resources for Understanding

By Brian Goldie and Karen Kapsanis, JPCL
47 Application of Thermal Spray Coating (webinar)
Presented by John Kern, technical auditor, SSPC.

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

 iv

Introduction
This eBook features articles from the Journal of Protective Coatings & Linings (JPCL)
about corrosion under insulation and includes topics such as understanding the
basics, preventing CUI with thermal-spray metal coatings and more. All information
about the articles is based on the original dates of publication of these materials in
JPCL. Please visit www.paintsquare.com for more articles on these and other topics.

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

 1

Photo courtesy of Turner Industries Group.

LLC. All other photos courtesy of the author
unless otherwise specified.

By Peter Bock, Advanced Polymerics, LLC

Preventing CUI With

U
sing thermal-spray metal coating on carbon steel
to prevent corrosion is a process that has been
around for most of a century. Under its traditional
Thermal-Spray Metal Coating
and more familiar name of metalizing, ther-
mal-spray coating has prevented corrosion on
New Use for a Traditional Process
carbon steel lock gates, dam components and similar large
marine-environment structures since the early 1900s.
Today, thermal-spray coating is applied by arc spray or mal-spray coating, arc spray is preferred for large, relatively
flame spray; flame spray is the older, more traditional applica- smooth surfaces such as tank roofs or exteriors of large
tion method, and in appearance seems similar to braz- process vessels (Fig. 1). Smaller and more intricate surfaces,
ing, although in fact, the thermal spray coating process and such as small-diameter piping, valves and flanges, are done
the protective film it produces are closer to a liquid-applied with flame spray. Where a project is large enough, both pro-
coating system. Arc-spray application of thermal-spray metal cesses are used to benefit from the advantages of each.
coatings was a shop-bound process until the 1990s, when
portable arc-spray equipment was developed and introduced Metal Types
into field maintenance coating procedures. A wide variety of metals can be used for thermal spray
For refining and petrochemical projects using ther- coating; the author has watched bronze thermal spray being

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.


Fig. 1: Multi-story process vessels provide large relatively flat areas
for arc-sprayed thermal spray aluminum. The high cost of lost pro-
duction on such vessels offsets the higher application cost of thermal
spray because of the shorter return-to-service time.
applied to bronze statues whose surfaces had deteriorated
from long-term environmental exposure in a polluted urban
environment on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Thermal-spray zinc was
originally touted as a competitor to hot-dip galvanizing, al-
though the two processes are significantly different in appli-
cation and in the resulting corrosion-resistant film they form.
Hot-dip galvanizing is most definitely a shop process,
totally unsuitable for any sort of field or maintenance appli-
cation. In times when environmental considerations were not
as strict as they are today, a large-scale galvanizing facility,
with huge open vats of strong acids or alkalis and an equally
large vat of molten zinc at 700 F was perfectly acceptable;
today it is not. Also back in those times, hot-dip galvanizing
was considered a quick process, where flame-spray metal
application was thought to be tedious and expensive.
2
The protective layer produced is significantly different be-
tween the two processes. Because of the strong chemicals,
high temperatures and molten zinc used in hot-dip galvaniz-
ing, the galvanized steel surface actually has an alloy effect.
A hot-dip galvanized surface has highly reactive, nearly pure
zinc at the exposed surface, but going down toward the sub-
strate, there are distinct layers of zinc-iron alloy, ending up
with all iron at the bottom of the galvanizing layer.
Thermal-spray metal-coated steel is different, whether the
metal used is aluminum or zinc. The flame or arc melts the
protective metal and the gas or air stream breaks the molten
metal into tiny spheres, which are then deposited onto the
steel to be protected. Molten metal oxidizes readily, so the
tiny molten spheres have formed a thin layer of surface oxide
by the time they land on the surface to be protected. They
have also cooled significantly, so they do not form a continu-
ous solid metal film, the way hot-dip galvanizing does, but the
oxide layer of the metal droplets is in intimate contact with
the oxide layer of surrounding droplets and any porosity be-
tween droplets is quickly filled in by oxide formation. Think of
the steel substrate covered with a thick layer of M&M candies
the candy shell is the oxide layer, and the chocolate inside
is the aluminum or zinc metal. In a relatively short period after
application of the thermal spray metal, the candy coating
oozes together without the chocolate inside ever melting.
The thermal-spray metal protective film is actually closer
to a liquid-applied coating than to hot-dip galvanizing, except
that there is no binder resin, as there would be in a liquid-ap-
plied coating.
From its first availability, thermal-spray application was use-
ful for field work, for maintenance, and for the fact that ther-
mal spray metal could be repaired in the field where hot-dip
galvanizing could not. Another advantage of thermal-spray
coating was the ability to use aluminum instead of zinc as the
protective metal. Both aluminum and zinc are anodic, sacrifi-
cial metals, but aluminum sacrifices much more slowly than
zinc; thermal-spray aluminum (TSA)-coated structures were
found to have much longer service life than hot-dip galva-
nized structures. There was no hot-dip aluminizing process
available, so taking advantage of aluminums lower sacrificial
tendency coupled with the fact that the oxide layer formed
during thermal-spray application slowed anodic metal sacri-
fice even more, made TSA application a viable competitor of
hot-dip galvanizing.
Usable service life of 30 and 40 years in exposed severe
marine environments became the accepted and expected
norm for TSA-coated, exposed, carbon-steel structures.
The mitigation of corrosion under insulation (CUI) has a
much shorter history than thermal-spray metal coating of
steel. Until fairly recently, the whole concept of preventing
CUI in refineries and chemical plants was totally neglected.
To quote the global nonmetallic coatings specifier for a major
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.
 3

oil company in 2009, when our plants were built, industry

did not understand that the environment under insulation
was going to be almost like immersion conditions, so the
correct type of coating (immersion grade) was not used. As a
result, almost NONE of the surfaces under insulation in every
single facility which is older than 15 years old are adequately
protected from CUI. CUI is a phenomenon because of our
ignorance.
Until the late 1970s, petrochemical equipment designers
and maintenance managers worked under the incorrect
assumptions that insulated, hot-operation carbon steel
equipment stayed hot enough not to have water under the
insulation, and that any corrosion which might occur could
be offset by designing equipment with additional steel wall
thickness as a corrosion allowance. Both of these concepts
Fig. 2: A large refinery or petrochemical plant will have hundreds of
are partially incorrect.
insulated process vessels and hundreds of miles of insulated pipe
All hot operating equipment cycles hot to cold. Even a ves- feeding those vessels.
sel or pipe which runs hot continuously until taken down for
turnaround maintenance is cycling. The length of the cycle
is equal to the operating time between turnarounds, and the
vessel or pipe will corrode while shut down for turnaround.
Additional steel wall thickness may provide some added ser-
vice life, but corrosion is rarely flat and uniformly distributed
across the surface of a pipe or vessel pinholes or cracks at
welds, corners or low spots in the insulation where water may
gather under the insulation will eventually perforate the steel,
and the results of the perforation can be catastrophic.
Another reason for neglecting CUI was far more straightfor-
ward. Until the 1980s, there were very few coatings suitable
for use in hot service under insulation. The standard pro-
cess operating temperature for hot-operation carbon steel
equipment in the 1980s was quoted as 350 F. During turn-
around steam-out work, this temperature could reach over
400 F. Only inorganic zinc and thin-film silicones had resins Fig. 3: This coupon failed the thermal-spray bend test after testing as
specified in SSPC-CS 23.00/AWS C2.23M/NACE No. 12.
which could survive such temperatures. Inorganic zinc was
a sacrificial coating; once the zinc had all sacrificed, there tion of polysiloxane-based elevated-temperature coatings in
was no longer any protection. Silicones could not be built to the early 1990s allowed thick-film build and temperature re-
sufficient thickness to prevent water permeation and even sistance, but the initial formulations could not tolerate cyclic
with lead and chromates in the silicone primer, they did not service. Second-generation polysiloxane-silicone hybrid for-
provide adequate corrosion resistance. mulations resolved this problem and provided the necessary
A series of major CUI-related equipment failures in the early temperature tolerance, flexibility for cyclic service and film
1980s showed the problem with using inorganic zinc under thickness to survive for years under insulation. TSA coating
insulation. As long as there was zinc left, the coating system was suggested as a CUI coating at about the same time.
protected. Once the zinc was completely sacrificed, active Although thermal-spray application required an arc or
corrosion progressed rapidly. There was no cost-effective flame, it was actually less hazardous than applying liquid
way of knowing or judging when the last bit of zinc was gone, paint. A hot-work permit similar to one issued for welding or
and the concept of risk-based inspection had not yet been cutting was obtained for thermal-spray application. Because
developed. the deposited metal was cool, the aluminum dust generated
There was an active search for relatively thick-film, stable, as overspray was less hazardous than the solvents released
temperature-resistant, cyclic-service-tolerant protective during liquid paint application and the dust could be easily
coatings to be used under insulation. Attempts to formulate gathered and removed, unlike paint overspray which stuck to
coatings using the ethyl silicate resin from inorganic zinc, but everything it touched.
without the added zinc, were a complete failure. The introduc-
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig 4: Despite the apparent fireworks, the arc-sprayed thermal-spray
aluminum is dry and cool almost immediately after application and is
ready for insulation and jacketing. Liquid coatings require additional
coats and extended drying time after each coat. Photo courtesy of
Turner Industries Group, LLC.
When coatings contractors first offered thermal-spray
application in the 1990s and early 2000s, the cost of field ap-
plication was typically about 10 times as expensive as liquid
coatings. These costs included the cost of surface prepara-
tion, coating materials, application and inspection, but made
no allowance for the amount of time actually required for
application and drying, or for the cleanup and disposal costs
at the end of the project.
Liquid coatings intended for CUI service typically require
two or three coats to achieve the specified 10-to-12 mils dry-
film thickness (DFT). Applied DFT for each coat cannot be
accurately checked until the coat of paint is dry, which may
take 8-to-12 hours, depending on temperature, humidity and
air circulation. If low DFT is found, additional paint must be
applied, requiring another full coats drying time.
In contrast, thermal-spray metal coating is a single-coat
system; dry and ready to be checked for DFT within seconds
of application; and any low-DFT areas that are found can be
immediately touched up with additional thermal-spray metal
(Fig. 4).
So Why is Thermal Spray More Expensive?
The source of the extra costs is detailed in the joint SSPC/
AWS/NACE standard for application of thermal spray coat-
ings, SSPC-CS 23.00/AWS C2.23M/NACE No. 12, Specifica-
tion for the Application of Thermal Spray Coatings (Metalliz-
ing) of Aluminum, Zinc, and Their Alloys and Composites for
the Corrosion Protection of Steel (Fig. 3, p. 64). This standard
is used for thermal-spray coatings, whether intended for
exposed or CUI service and the requirements in it are much
stricter than requirements for application of liquid coatings in
similar service.
4
The first bit of expensive news in this standard regards
surface preparation. SSPC-SP 5, White Metal Blast Cleaning
is required for thermal spray in marine or immersion service.
Because CUI service is considered intermittent immersion,
SSPC-SP 5 is mandatory for thermal spray in CUI service.
Achieving a specified anchor profile is also critical for ther-
mal-spray projects, since mechanical adhesion of the ther-
mal-spray layer to the anchor profile of the steel substrate
is the only thing keeping the thermal-spray layer attached to
the substrate. Many CUI-rated liquid coatings may be applied
over lesser surface preparation, or even on top of existing
old coatings; the liquid resin in these provides an additional
means of adhesion.
Second is the requirement for qualified applicators and
helpers. Improperly applied thermal spray may have holidays
or poor cohesion. Improperly applied thermal-spray coat-
ing which does not tie into the anchor profile may disbond
from the substrate during thermal cycling under insulation.
Thermal spray can only be applied by specialized arc-spray
or flame-spray equipment; liquid coatings can be sprayed,
rolled, brushed or even applied by a mitt or dauber, depend-
ing on surfaces to be coated, product data sheet or specifi-
cation.
Third is the need for much more thorough inspection,
before, during and after application of thermal spray, than
would normally be done for liquid coatings. Properly applied
TSA looks like White Metal blasted steel, so visual holiday
inspection cannot be done as for liquid coatings (Fig. 5). DFT
readings must be taken much more frequently than would
normally be specified by SSPC-PA 2, and pull-off adhesion
testing is mandatory according to SSPC-CS 23.00.
As more and more contractors have become familiar with
thermal-spray coating application, prices have come down,
but they are still higher than coating the same project with
liquid paint. However, thermal spray has two inherent advan-
Fig. 5: Inspection of thermal-spray aluminum requires special care
because the visual appearance of thermal spray is almost identical to
the appearance of newly blasted steel.
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

tages offsetting the restrictions from the SSPC/AWS/NACE
standard. Unlike a contractor, who is bidding the time and
materials his crews will actually use, the specification engi-
neer or maintenance manager is also intimately concerned
with the out-of-service time required to replace a CUI coating
system on a vessel or pipe run. To him or her, out of ser-
vice means out of production. No production equals no coating is in excellent shape and looks to be good for another
income for the affected unit and possibly other units
upstream or downstream in the same train, which cannot
operate when the affected unit is down.
Scaffolding, tenting, removal of jacketing and insulation,
surface preparation, and replacement of insulation and jack-
eting are identical whether using thermal spray or liquid coat-
ings, but where liquid coating application takes three days
if drying time between coats is included, thermal spray is a
one-day operation. The corrosion control manager at a major
Gulf Coast refinery estimated that a 15- or 17-story contact
process tower such as the ones shown in Figure 1, generates
a million dollars in revenue per day of operation. Saving two
days of downtime by applying thermal spray instead of liquid
coating will save the owner $2 million which (the corrosion
control manager estimated) is much more than the added
cost of thermal spray instead of liquid coating.
The second savings is length of service life. From a con-
tractors viewpoint, the cost of a project is the cost of time
and materials his crews and inspectors will require to com-
plete a project. From the corrosion control managers point
of view, the true cost of a project is the contractors invoice
plus the cost of out-of-service time, divided by the number
of years of service life expected from the corrosion-control
project.
Major U.S. oil company corrosion-control specifications
rate thermal-spray aluminum in CUI service as an expect-
ed service life of 20, 30, and in one specification, 40 years
without replacement or major repair. These same specifica-
tions rate the best liquid-applied coating systems as having
expected service life of 8-to-15 years. From this perspective,
the price of thermal-spray coating goes from being much
more expensive than liquid-applied coatings to being much
less expensive, since it is expected to last much longer.
5
Despite thermal-spray metal coatings nearly a century of
successful service on exposed steel in coastal, marine and
similar severe environments, the longest properly recorded,
properly monitored CUI service for TSA on U.S. refineries or
chemical plants that the author can find records for is just
short of 15 years. But after that service time, the applied TSA
ten or fifteen years, approaching the corrosion control
managers dream of the CUI coating system having the same
expected service life as the unit itself.
About the Author
Peter Bock is executive vice president of Advanced Poly-
merics Inc. in Hooksett, New Hampshire. He is an Air Force
veteran and holds degrees from Tulane University and the
University of Northern Colorado. Bock has 37 years of sales,
management and technical service
experience in oilfield and petrochem-
ical heavy-duty coatings in the United
States, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela,
Indonesia and Taiwan.
He has experience with on- and off-
shore production, drilling and workover
rigs, shipyard work, natural gas and
LNG, pipelines, terminals, refineries and
chemical plants. Bock is a specialist in
elevated temperature systems, corrosion under insulation
and chemical passivation.
He is a former president of NACE New Orleans Section and of
the Houston Coating Society. Bock is a NACE-certified coating
inspector and has presented papers and symposia at many na-
tional, regional and local coatings and corrosion control events.
JPCL
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

WHEN UNDERCOVER AGENTS
CANT STAND THE HEAT:
Coatings in Action (CIA) and the Netherworld
of Corrosion Under Insulation
OPERATION HIGH HEAT
M ission Impossible gave us a thrilling movie where the
daring hero, a master of disguise, belonged to an unofficial
branch of the CIA. His prime directive was to prevent a secret
list of covert eastern European CIA agents from falling into the
wrong hands. Failure was not an option - countless lives were at
stake; the balance of global power hung on a knife edge. Suc-
cess depended on the courageous, quick thinking actions of
our CIA agent and his team. Ominously, some CIA agents were
not as they seemed. Who could be trusted? Who was friend?
Who was foe?
With a focus on intelligence collection for the oil and gas
industry, Mission Possible: Operation High Heat, is our
6
By Dr. Mike ODonoghue, Vijay Datta, MS
Dr. Adrian Andrews, Sean Adlem and
Matthew Giardina, International Paint LLC;
Nicole de Varennes, CET, Linda G.S. Gray, MSc, and
Damien Lachat, RAE Engineering
and Inspection Ltd.; and Bill Johnson, AScT
Acuren Group Inc.
high-tech adventure into a mysterious corner of the coatings
world where specialty high heat coatings work undercover
on corrosion under insulation (CUI) assignments. Under close
scrutiny, a task force of the CIA (Coatings in Action), was poised
to expose potential fault lines, misinformation, and hyperbole
with respect to coatings performance. What was trustworthy?
What was friend? What was foe? Would a post-reconnaissance
of the mission prove revealing? Would some new technology
CIA agents be able to stand the heat? Could the same new
technology CIA agents throw light on other CIA activities? And
how would an older, well-respected CIA agent perform under
the same adversarial conditions as the newer generation opera-
tives?
This article will describe the importance of Coatings in
Action (CIA) in the undercover realm of CUI. A suite of accel-
erated laboratory tests was undertaken in part to evaluate the
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 1: Pipe sample schematic
Figures courtesy of the authors
claims made for engineered coatings touted to possess ultra-
high-heat resistance to 400 C and simultaneous anticorrosion
properties, and to evaluate the coatings suitability for cyclic
CUI use.
The inspiration for Operation High Heat stemmed in part
from facility owners requests to the authors to identify promis-
ing new pipe and process vessel coatings that could be used in
cyclic (rather than continuous) temperature CUI environments
7
Fig. 2: Experimental set-up (Left to Right: TSA,
Coating #1, Coating #2, and TMIC)
that are more aggressive than those typical of CUI problems.
The tests also continue earlier accelerated laboratory investiga-
tions of the CUI cyclic performance of new generation coatings.
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Corrosion under insulation (CUI) and its high associated costs
have been the subject of considerable attention by facility own-
ers for several decades. CUI processes themselves are gener-
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.
 8

Increasing Corrosion Protection of Organic Coatings

Poor Protection Good Excellent

Begins

4 6 8 10

Coating Impedance, Log z (Z in ohmscm2 @ 0.1 Hz)

Fig. 3: Interpretation of EIS results21

ally well understood.1,2 For CUI to occur, the usual actors must halt and may cause a catastrophe. Pipe maintenance repair
be in play: oxygen (a strong corrodent), water, a contaminant costs from CUI alone have been reported to be 40-60% of a re-
salt (the corrosive), a metallic pathway, and a suitable tempera- finerys maintenance budget.6 Ancillary costs can be significant
ture range. According to NACE SP0198, the critical corrosion from lost production, chemical spills, environmental cleanup,
temperature ranges that a high heat coating must withstand are and health and safety implications.
-4 C to 175 C for carbon steel, and 50 C to 175 C for stainless Without the CUI countermeasures of judiciously selected
steel.3 materials, be they protective jacketing, thermal insulation, or
Typically, the most potentially menacing CUI environment specialty coatings, bare carbon steel pipe and vessels inevita-
for thermally insulated carbon steel piping spools will occur be- bly corrode undetected in water saturated-insulation. When the
tween 60 C and 120 C. Factors such as dissolved oxygen, cor- steel fails, the consequences can ultimately be dire.
rosive salts in the water or insulation, the type of insulation, and
isothermal conditions or thermal cycling will be important. Rain COUNTERMEASURES TO CUI
leaking through damaged cladding and porous insulation can Thermal Spray Aluminum (TSA)
lead to moisture at the carbon steel-insulation interface. So too For over 30 years, a single coat application of ~10 mils of TSA
can condensation at that interface after a rapid cooling stage in has had an excellent track record of protecting carbon steel
the process cycle. When the system cools and if an absorbent against atmospheric corrosion in many environments.7,8
insulation like calcium silicate is used, moisture will be retained.
Therefore, insulation materials like expanded perlite or aerogels
tend to be favored.
A carefully designed facility and the use of high quality insu-
lation materials and protective jacketing (e.g., aluminum clad-
ding, multi-laminate tapes, and glass fiber lagging cloths) are
important CUI deterrence strategies to prevent water reaching
insulated carbon steel pipes.4 But as noted, if mechanical
damage occurs, water can reach hot pipes, where evaporation
results in deposition of soluble salts. A continued water supply
and repetitive thermal cycles will concentrate the salts, raising
the boiling point of the water. In an open system, as water nears
its boiling point, the solubility of dissolved oxygen will plummet.
However, in a closed CUI environment, water entering the insu-
lation is continually replenishing oxygen to the steel-insulation
interface. The net result is that CUI rates of 1.5 to 3.0 mm per
year can occur, some 20 times greater than rates due to atmo-
spheric corrosion alone.5
A clandestine and unpredictable enemy, CUI normally goes
undetected until the damage is significant. Without warning,
Fig. 4: Overview of all samples after CUI cyclic testing
perforation of carbon steel can bring operations to a grinding

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Fig. 5: Average rusting (left) and cracking (right) in the coatings after CUI cyclic testing

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

 10

12.0
Log Z Impedance at 0.1 Hz

10.0

8.0

6.0

4.0

2.0
Pre test

Pre test

Pre test

Pre test
100 C
200 C
300 C
400 C

100 C
200 C
300 C
400 C

100 C
200 C
300 C
400 C

100 C
200 C
300 C
400 C
0
TSA #1 #2 TMIC
Fig. 6: EIS results of tested and untested CUI pipes

Although TSA is somewhat expensive to apply, requiring a min-

imum SSPC-SP 5, White Metal abrasive blast with a profile of
3.5 to 5.5 mils, its life cycle costs are low and its performance is
generally outstanding in the war on atmospheric corrosion.9
With respect to CUI mitigation, however, there appear to be
relatively few case histories using TSA and the jury appears to
be out regarding its efficacy for CUI service. It has been report-
ed that TSA can provide 25 to 30 years of maintenance-free
and inspection-free service.10 Indeed TSA has provided over
20 years of zero maintenance service life in some CUI pipe Fig. 7: After cyclic immersion in salt solution with dry out
applications and its use in CUI environments continues to be
the subject of investigation.11,12 In atmospheric service, TSA Fig. 8 (below): After cyclic immersion in salt solution
provides both galvanic and barrier protection to carbon steel with dry outaverage rusting
and austenitic stainless
steel. While TSA is known
to be tolerant of continu-
ous temperatures as high
as 500 C, and elevated
cyclic temperatures in wet
and dry conditions, what
is not so well known is that
TSA corrodes on steel in
hot salt solutions at ~80
C.13
So while a facility own-
ers expectation is that
TSA should provide mark-
edly superior performance
in CUI service compared
to liquid-applied coatings,
this expectation may not
always be well founded.
With wet insulation on
steel pipe, TSA does have
a temperature limitation in
hot salt solutions. Al-
though metallic aluminum
is anodic to carbon steel,
in a saline environment

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Fig. 9: After cyclic immersion in salt solution with dry outaverage cracking

Fig. 10: After cyclic immersion in salt solution with dry outaverage flaking

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

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a high-heat and ultra-high-heat-resistant (up to 200 C and >200

C respectively) inorganic copolymer that contained leafing alu-
minum flake pigmentation. Distributed throughout an otherwise
brittle coating matrix, an overlapping array of aluminum flake
pigments could be theorized to afford internal stress reduction
to the coating when applied to carbon steel. In essence, the
aluminum platelets would be envisioned to provide mechan-
ical toughening of the coating and enable it to withstand the
expansion and contraction of carbon steel pipe in elevated
and fluctuating temperature service. More obviously, aluminum
flake pigmentation would function as a tortuous diffusion path
against the intrusion of water, oxygen, and dissolved salts, and
as an anticorrosive pigment. When used in epoxy formulations,
aluminum pigments have been noted for their abilities to func-
Fig. 11: TSA after CUI cyclic testing
tion as barrier pigments, and for their buffering reactions at the
coating-steel interface.16 In CUI environments, such a system
could provide a much needed
flexible and impermeable coating
film on carbon steel or austenitic
stainless steel.
These considerations formed
the basis of the development of
the titanium modified inorganic
copolymer (TMIC), a relatively new
technology that consists of cross-
linked inorganic film-formers with
aluminum flake pigmentation. The
TMIC network was designed to
ensure that mechanical properties
such as flexibility would accom-
modate the stresses generated
within the coating during high
temperature cycling in the typical
CUI temperature range
(and cycling anywhere between
100 C and 400 C), through im-
Fig. 12: TSA with TMIC patch after CUI cyclic testing

with the temperature close to 80 C, the efficiency of aluminum

will be lowered. In contrast, barrier coatings, even if they contain
aluminum pigments, do not behave as sacrificial anodes and
thus can be more effective in hot brine.
Also, TSA, with high porosity (e.g., 5 to 30%), will form
insoluble aluminum salts in the pores over time. Sealers have
been used to address the porosity.14 Typical sealers have been
based on low viscosity coatings, although those based on vinyl
coatings, and certain thin film inorganic copolymers have been
shown to be more effective than those based on epoxy coat-
ings.15

High-Performance Modified Silicone Polymer Coatings

In contrast to the use of TSA, a particularly interesting approach
to mitigating CUI would be for the coating formulator to develop
Fig. 13: Coating # 1 after CUI cyclic testing
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 14: Coating # 2 after CUI cyclic testing
Fig. 15: TMIC after CUI cyclic testing
Fig. 16: Overall view of uncoated pipe samples
Fig. 17: Close-up view of uncoated pipe samples
proved network formation. TMIC technology has been de-
scribed elsewhere for insulated and non-insulated pipe appli-
cations, deployed either in stand-alone mode or in conjunction
with TSA.15,17
Two other commercial inorganic copolymers of interest
were investigated in the present work. Derived from advanced
13
Fig. 18: SEM backscat-
ter image of the TSA
coating showing the
coating with porosity
present during coating
application (100 x)
Fig. 19: SEM backscat-
ter image of the TSA
with TMIC repair patch
at the 4 cm (400 C)
location showing intact
bond to substrate and
between coatings
(100 x)
silicone chemistry, they were expected to have thermal and
thermo-oxidative stability through the resistance of their Si O
bonds to scission, and to be excellent potential CIA candidates.
It is important to point out that the evolution of coatings
technology for high temperature resistance and anticorrosive
properties in CUI service has been through inorganic zinc sili-
cates (400 C), early thin film multi-coat aluminum silicones (500
C), and immersion-grade epoxy novolac systems (230 C).18
The maximum service temperatures are in parentheses. First,
the zinc silicates are no longer favored in CUI environments
because of reactivity and inadequate performance. Second, the
early thin film aluminum silicones have poor barrier properties in
intermittent hot and wet service and poor resistance to thermal
shock. Third, epoxy phenolics begin to thermally decompose,
carbonize, and become ineffective at ~230 C.19
So coming to the fore in the present day are modified inor-
ganic polymer coatings said to have attributes that may include
the following.
Cyclic and continuous temperature resistance to 400 C
One coat, thick film applications at 7 to 8 mils DFT
Flexible at elevated temperatures
Barrier resistance and micro-crack resistance
Long service life
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 20: Metallographic image showing the bond location between
the TSA and TMIC repair patch at the 4 cm (400 C) location (200 x)
Fig. 21: SEM - X-ray map-
ping images showing the
distribution of elemental
constituents in the TMIC
and TSA bond location
(300 x)
Ease of application
Application to SSPC-SP 6 and water blasted surfaces
Application to hot substrates up to 150 C
Minimal to zero porosity
Self repair and spot repair for TSA
Sealer utility for TSA
Formulated to have enhanced barrier properties, some of
these materials are said to have the added advantage of alumi-
num flake or micaceous iron oxide (MIO) pigments in their resin
matrix.
Because of its ultra-high-temperature properties (>200 C),
TSA was included as the benchmark for this study, and a new
technology, titanium modified inorganic copolymer (TMIC),
already demonstrated to be suitable for cyclic CUI service up to
400 C, was investigated as a repair patch on TSA in a laboratory
simulation of a field touch-up.
Undercover Agents Investigate
In the Mission Impossible movie, our hero dons one of his many
clever disguises, preparing for the mission to find the elusive
data so crucial to his investigation. But now he is alone. His re-
sources are tested to the limit with so many forces against him.
All his faculties are sharply attuned as he strives against almost
14
Fig. 22: SEM image of
Coating #1 after exposure
to 100 C at interface with
substrate, showing coarse
filler material in a dense
matrix (300 x)
Fig. 23: SEM image of
Coating #1 at interface
with substrate, after ex-
posure at 400 C showing
disbondment at coating
to substrate interface
(100 x)
insurmountable odds. Will this testing time winnow the weak
from the strong? All will be revealed....
And what did our own winnowing reveal about the four CIA
coating technologies investigated here?
TSA: Thermal Spray Aluminum (1 coat @ 10 mils DFT).
Coating #1: Modified Silicone Copolymer (2 coats @ 10 to
12 mils TDFT).
Stated temperature resistance up to 650 C in continuous
service and suitable for CUI service.
Coating #2: Inorganic Polymer with MIO
(2 coats @ 12 to 18 mils TDFT).
Stated to withstand intermittent exposures up to 720 C and
prevent CUI.
TMIC: Titanium Modified Inorganic Copolymer (1 coat 7 to 8
mils DFT).
Stated to withstand cyclic CUI environments for pipes to 400
C and 650 C in continuous operation.
The following tests were carried out.
A. CUI cyclic testing. ASTM D2485, ASTM G189, and the mod-
ified Houston Pipe test20 were considered for evaluating CUI
coating performance. Instead, the CUI cyclic test employed in
the previous research17 was used, as it provided an accelerat-
ed, significantly more aggressive environment favored by some
facility owners. Also, coating performance under CUI conditions
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 24: SEM image of
Coating #2 at interface
with substrate, after ex-
posure at 100 C show-
ing coarse filler material
and intact matrix (300 x).
Fig. 25: SEM image of Coating
#2 after exposure at 400 C
showing coating matrix break-
down and fracture (300 x)
could be determined simultaneously over a wide range of tem-
peratures, from 95 C to 445 C. In the CUI cyclic test, insulated,
coated steel pipe was positioned vertically on a hot plate,
resulting in a temperature gradient along the length of the pipe.
The insulation was cyclically saturated with sodium chloride
solution, and the pipe was cyclically cooled. Calcium silicate
was used as the insulation because it is known to absorb and
wick moisture, and hold 20-40 times its weight in water.
Uncoated steel pipe was prepared and subjected to CUI
cyclic testing in exactly the same manner as the coated pipe to
determine the corrosion occurring in the absence of a protec-
tive coating.
B. EIS testing. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy
analysis of the coatings was performed before and after CUI
cyclic testing to assess changes in the barrier properties of the
coatings.21
C. Cyclic salt immersion and high heat dry out. After CUI
cyclic testing the four coatings were submitted to six weeks
of another aggressive round of corrosive testing in which they
were exposed to cycles of sodium chloride solution immersion
alternated with dry heat at 200 C.
D. Adhesion, porosity, cracking, and flaking tests. After CUI
cyclic testing, the four coatings were evaluated for adhesion
loss, porosity, cracking, and flaking using optical and scanning
electron microscopy (SEM).
15
Fig. 26: SEM image of Coating #2 after image analysis to evaluate
coating porosity after exposure at 400 C showing porosity level of
9% in the matrix (200 x)
Fig. 27: SEM image
of TMIC coating after
exposure at 100 C
showing interlacing
of dense aluminum
platelets in an inorganic
matrix (1000 x)
CIA RECONNAISSANCE: OPERATION HIGH HEAT
Experimental
So where is our agent now? To find the mole, he becomes
a mole, delving deeply into convoluted terrain, finding false
avenues of espionage and dangerous dead ends. Our hero,
previously alone, now has other covert agents support and
defend him. Yet his life is in danger. But he must carry on, for to
step away is to admit defeat, and defeat would be catastrophic.
What will he do next?.
In the same vein, which CIA agent will act as a mole and
survive the ravages of corrosion under insulation?
Pipe Samples
The external surfaces of steel pipe (60 cm long, 5 cm inside
diameter, 5 mm wall thickness) were abrasive blast cleaned to
an SSPC-SP 10, Near White Metal, with a 2-3 mil profile using
G40 steel grit. Each of the liquid coatings was applied to dupli-
cate steel pipes by air spray and cured at 25 C for seven days.
TSA was applied using flame spray. Other sections of prepared
pipe were left uncoated to facilitate temperature determination
under insulation and the corrosion behavior of bare steel under
CUI cyclic test conditions.
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 28: SEM image
of TMIC coating after
exposure at 400 C
showing interlacing
of aluminum platelets
in the intact inorganic
matrix (1000 x)
Pre-formed calcium silicate insulation, 5 cm in thickness,
was fastened around each pipe in clam-shell fashion. Aluminum
foil was wrapped around the insulated pipe and secured, leaving
both ends of the insulation open to facilitate the entry and
drainage of the wetting solution (Fig. 1).
One of the TSA-coated pipes was prepared with an inten-
tional repair patch of TMIC. The repair area was abrasive blast
cleaned to bare steel (silica sand) to an SSPC-SP 5, White Metal.
TMIC was brushed on in two coats with a total DFT of 9 mils on
the bare steel area, overlapping the adjacent featheredTSA.
The patch extended over one side of the lower half of the pipe,
which was the area subjected to the highest temperature.
CUI Cyclic Test Design
The CUI cyclic test was run twice with each of the four coatings.
Each weekday morning, one liter of 1% sodium chloride (NaCl)
solution was poured slowly into the insulation at the top end of
the pipe sample. The liquid was mostly absorbed by the insula-
tion, with only a small amount of drainage from the bottom. The
four pipe samples were placed on the hot plates (Fig. 2), and the
hot plates were turned on, reaching 450 C within 30 minutes.
After 8 hours, the four pipe samples were removed from the hot
plates, and another liter of 1% NaCl was poured slowly into the
insulation at the top of each pipe. The re-saturated pipe sam-
ples remained off the hot plates overnight. This procedure was
Fig. 29: Preparation of TSA weld joints Fig. 30: TMIC applied to protect
TSA weld joints
16
repeated five days a week, for six weeks, for a total of 30 cycles.
After 30 cycles, the insulation was removed from the pipes and
the coating performance evaluated.
CUI Pipe Temperature Gradient
The temperature of the pipe under the insulation was deter-
mined by placing thermocouples between uncoated steel pipe
and the insulation at 5-cm intervals. The assembly was other-
wise identical to the coated samples. The instrumented pipe
was placed on each of the hot plates, and the hot plate tem-
perature was adjusted to achieve a temperature gradient from
445 C (bottom) to 95 C (top) as Table 1 shows. The insulation
was not wetted with electrolyte in these measurements. The hot
plate settings were maintained for the duration of the testing.
The temperature profile measurement was repeated after each
six-week test to confirm that it was unchanged.
Evaluation of Coating Performance
after CUI Cyclic Testing
Coating performance was evaluated based on visual examina-
tion, including degree of rusting, blistering, flaking, and cracking
(ISO 4628, Parts 25) and color change. Adhesion was evaluat-
ed using an X-scribe knife method (ASTM D6677).
EIS measurements (ISO 16773) were made before and after
CUI cyclic testing, using the attached cell method in which
acrylic tubes (2 cm in diameter) were cemented to the coating
and filled with 5% NaCl solution at 23 C for 48 hours. Bode
curves were run with Gamry EIS instrumentation, and coating
impedance (Log Z) was read from each curve at 0.1 Hz. An
interpretive guide for EIS is presented in Fig. 3. Attached cells
were placed on the pipe where CUI temperatures were 100,
200, 300, and 400 C.
Cyclic Immersion in Salt Solution
The effect of CUI cyclic test conditions on the four coatings
was further evaluated by subjecting one set of tested coatings
to a cyclic salt immersion/heat test (insulation removed). The
bottom 30 cm of each coated pipe (190-445 C) was immersed
in a 5% NaCl solution at 23 C for 48 hours, after which the pipes
were transferred to a convection oven at 200 C for 48 hours.
Fig. 31: Inspection of TMIC after 1 year in service
showing no coating breakdown or rusting
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

The pipe samples remained in the oven over the weekend.
Three cycles of immersion and dry heat were conducted each
week for 6 weeks, with visual inspections at 2-week intervals.
CIA RECONNAISSANCE: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 4 shows the appearance of the coated pipe samples
after CUI cyclic testing, and Fig. 5 graphically shows the degree
of rusting and cracking. Table 2 and Fig. 6, respectively, give
the adhesion and EIS results. Duplicate coated pipe samples
performed almost identically. Figure 7 shows the coated pipe
samples after subsequent cyclic salt immersion and heat, and
Figs. 8 to 10, respectively, show the degree of rusting, cracking
and flaking.
TSA in Action
CUI Cyclic Testing
The main effect of the CUI conditions was rusting in the hottest
zone of the pipe (390 C to 445 C), presumably from corrosion of
the steel substrate by sodium chloride solution that had pene-
trated the porous TSA coating. The degree of rusting was Ri 2
(ISO 4628-2), or rusting over about 0.50% of the affected area.
The TSA did not blister, flake, or crack. Except for rusting, the
only visible changes were a slight loss of metallic luster above
250 C and patches of a thin white deposit, which was presum-
ably residues of salt, insulation or aluminum oxide formation
(Figs. 4 and 11).
The TSA retained excellent adhesion to the steel substrate
(Table 2), and no coating could be removed by prying with a
stout knife.
The TSA (pre-test) initially had very low impedance, Log Z =
2.6, consistent with the metallic nature of the coating. Exposure
to CUI conditions resulted in a small increase in impedance that
is attributed to the formation of oxides and/or insoluble salts.
They add electrical resistance to the metallic coating by filling
the pores of the coating.
Cyclic Immersion in Salt Solution and Dry Heat
Subsequent exposure to cyclic salt immersion and dry heat
produced little change in the TSA. It showed no significant
increase in rusting and did not blister, flake or crack. Visually the
TSA became more dulled and yellowed, but this appeared to be
staining as a result of salt and rust deposits that accumulated in
the immersion solution.
TMIC Repair Patch on TSA in Action
CUI Cyclic Testing
No deterioration or rusting was observed on the TMIC repair
patch (Figs. 4 and 12) except for a longitudinal, hairline crack
in the TMIC/TSA overlap area from 335 to 445 C. The crack
contained no rust, indicating it did not penetrate to the steel
substrate. The TMIC patch showed a slight to moderate loss
of metallic luster and general dulling above 245 C, with only
17
a slight dulling elsewhere. Adhesion of the TMIC to the steel
substrate and the TSA in the overlap area was excellent (Table
2) with cohesive separation only occurring during the prying
action.
Coating #1 (Modified Silicone Copolymer) in Action
CUI Cyclic Testing
Coating #1 deteriorated significantly more than TSA (Figs. 4 and
13). Moderate to severe rusting (ISO 4628-3 Ri 2 and Ri 3, Fig.
5) was observed above 250 C. Below 250 C, a small amount of
pinpoint rusting occurred, with no rusting below 190 C. Most
of the rusting was associated with cracking of the coating. The
cracking consisted of crescent shaped cracks above 390 C
(ISO 4628-4, Rating 2, Sigmoid), randomly orientated cracks
between 390 and 250 C (ISO 4628-4 Rating 4 and 5, NP) and
progressively fewer cracks below 250 C, with no cracks below
210 C. A small ring of coating around the pipe circumference
at about 400 C was relatively crack-free. The coating did not
blister or flake, and it darkened slightly above 250 C.
Coating #1 retained relatively good adhesion (Table 2).
Above 200 C, adhesion dropped from a pre-test rating of 10 to
ratings of 7 and 8.
Coating #1 (pre-test) initially had a relatively high impedance,
Log Z = 10.4, indicative of excellent barrier properties. Exposure
to CUI cyclic testing caused the impedance to drop by several
Log Z units at 200 C and higher, consistent with cracking and
physical breakdown in the coating. The impedance at 400 C
(Log Z=7.3) was measurably higher because the coating was
relatively free of cracks in this area.
CUI Immersion in Salt Solution
Subsequent exposure to cyclic salt immersion and dry heat
resulted in further deterioration of Coating #1. The degree of
rusting increased significantly above 190 C, with rusting now
extending below 190 C into areas previously rust-free. The
extent of cracking above 210 C also increased significantly, re-
sulting in large areas of flaking where previously there had been
none. The flaking was accompanied by large rusty patches of
exposed substrate. The coating darkened and became severely
dulled by rust above 250 C. It became moderately dulled and
yellowed by the rust in the saline solution in the 190 C to 250 C
region.
Coating #2 (Inorganic Polymer with MIO) in Action
CUI Cyclic Testing
Coating #2 deteriorated considerably more than Coating #1.
Severe rusting (ISO 4628-3 Ratings 1 to 3) occurred above 290
C, and above 335 C, the coating looked swollen from corrosion
product formation under the coating. Blistering, patches of
severe flaking and severe cracking occurred above 390 C. The
blisters were 2 to 4 mm in diameter (ISO 4628-2, size 4, den-
sity 2) and occurred over half of the pipe circumference. The
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

flaking had a rating 1 to 5 (ISO 4628-5) and included two large
flakes ( 2.5 x 5 cm and 1.5 x 2 cm) that revealed a heavily rusted
substrate. The cracking was longitudinal (ISO 4628-4, Rating
3), with some cracks continuing into areas of the pipe at lower
temperature down to 335 C (Figs. 4 and 14).
The degree of deterioration below 390 C progressively
decreased, until no deterioration was visible below 250 C. The
area of the coating above 190 C darkened moderately, whereas
the area below 190 C lightened. Patches of a white deposit,
presumably of salt or insulation, were present over the surface.
The coating completely lost adhesion above 335 C (Table 2,
ASTM D6677, Rating 0) and could be lifted from the substrate in
large chips. Below 335 C, the adhesion improved, with excellent
adhesion retained below 250 C (Ratings 8 and 9).
Coating #2 (pre-test) initially had a relatively high impedance,
Log Z = 10.4, indicative of excellent barrier properties. Exposure
to CUI conditions produced little change in impedance at 100 C
and 200 C, suggesting no deterioration had occurred. However
at 300 C and 400 C the impedance dropped significantly, con-
sistent with the visible coating degradation.
TMIC in Action
CUI Cyclic Testing
TMIC performed generally as well as the TSA (Figs. 4 and 15).
A ring of light rust and pinpoints of rust occurred from 335 C
to 445 C (ISO 4628-3 Ri 0 and Ri 1). However, the rust stain was
easily removed by lightly abrading the coating surface, indi-
cating the rust did not originate from the steel substrate, but
instead from transfer of corrosion products from the uncoated
end of the steel pipe. The TMIC had no blistering, flaking, or
cracking. A slight loss of luster and general dulling occurred
above 190 C.
Adhesion to the substrate was excellent at 200 C and above,
with no adhesive or cohesive separation observed during the
prying action (Table 2). At 100 C, small (1 to 2 mm) chips could
be pried cohesively from the pipe surface. The observations
suggest that exposure to temperatures above 100 C improved
the adhesion and toughness of the TMIC.
The impedance of TMIC initially (pre-test) was Log Z=7.0. Ex-
posure to CUI conditions at 100 C, 200 C, and 300 C produced
a significant increase in impedance to Log Z=9.3 to 9.7. Expo-
sure to higher temperature reduced the permeability of the
coating by completing the curing and cross-linking processes
of the polymeric structure of the coating that had been applied
at ambient temperature. The high impedance was consistent
with the visually excellent condition of the coating. At 400 C, the
impedance dropped to Log Z=3.3, close to the values observed
for TSA.
Cyclic Immersion in Salt Solution
Pinpoint rusting increased somewhat in size and density above
335 C, with no rusting or any other type of degradation ob-
18
served below 335 C. One quadrant of the pipe above 390 C
developed mild flaking associated with pinpoint rusting. The
flaking occurred cohesively and did not extend to the substrate.
The coating below 335 C remained free of flaking. A few hairline
cracks developed around half of the pipe circumference above
390 C. The coating became duller with more staining as testing
progressed, where staining was presumably from salt and rust
in the immersion solution.
Corrosion Rate of Steel under
CUI Cyclic Testing Conditions
Uncoated steel pipe was subjected to the same CUI cyclic test
as the four coatings. The steel pipe was covered with a thick
layer of loose, red/black corrosion products at the end of the
test (Fig. 16). The corrosion products were noticeably thinner
and more adherent over the middle third of the pipe (160 C to
250 C).
The corrosion products were removed by glass bead blast-
ing (Fig. 17) to better determine the metal loss and the nature of
the corrosion. Between 285 C and 445 C, the steel surface had
a high density of very small pits, 0.4 mm to 0.6 mm in diameter.
The pits appeared to be deep, but were too small in diameter to
accurately measure with a pit gauge. From 190 C to 285 C, large
pits 2 to 10 mm in diameter were visible, with depths of 0.5 mm
to 1.25 mm (mechanical pit gauge measurement). The 95 C to
190 C area of the pipe showed a mixture of both types of pitting
but at much lower density.
Based on the deepest pit (1.25 mm) after 6 weeks of CUI
cyclic testing, the pit corrosion rate was calculated as 10.8 mm/
year. At this corrosion rate, perforation of the 5-mm pipe wall
would occur in approximately 4.3 months.
Post Cia Reconnaissance: Microstructure, Porosity, Composition
Our Mission Impossible hero is shaken. Our hero finds that a
friend can be foe after all, and conversely foe can inexplicably
become friend. What was believed to be true is revealed to be
false. What was once obvious and accepted is now in doubt.
The tables have turned, a compromise reached, but what will be
done with the secret data? Will the face of the future ultimately
change?
As did our hero, we too rely on computer science, high-tech
gadgetry to reveal and confirm our findings. Let us see where
our investigations have led.
To complete the picture of how the four coatings reacted to
the effect of heat, the microstructure and porosity of the coatings
were examined at high magnification using optical microscopy,
scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray mapping, and EDXA.
General Observations
Optical microscopy was first employed with the intention of
estimating porosity based upon visual comparison to CSA
Z245.20 (Canadian Standards Association). Early optical photo-
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

micrographs suggested there was porosity in the liquid-applied
coatings, in some instances similar to that in TSA.
SEM was then used to afford a more quantitative value for
porosity within the coating based on the cross section sur-
face areas. This worked well for TSA and for Coating #1, where
virtually no porosity was seen. However, it did not work well for
TMIC because virtually all the dark areas in the TMICs optical
and SEM images were subsequently shown not resulting from
porosity. This led next to taking higher magnification images.
Through the use of a fluorescent green epoxy mounting me-
dium, and polishing the samples, the dark areas of TMIC at all
temperatures were shown to be back reflection of pigment. In
contrast, the dark areas seen in the images of Coating #2 were
spaces arising from coating breakdown (not true porosity) when
the temperature increased beyond 200 C.
Selected areas near the coating-steel interface were exam-
ined at high magnification using X-ray mapping techniques.
Each coating cross-section was analyzed using EDXA at various
locations in the coating matrix.
TSA in Action
Inspection of the photomicrographs and SEM images showed
that the porosity of the TSA according to the analysis from the
Image Pro Plus software was approximately 12 to 20% (Fig. 18).
This range is typical for TSA. As expected there was no evi-
dence of structural changes in the TSA between 100 C and 400
C. The images also indicated excellent adhesion between the
TSA and the abrasive blast cleaned steel substrate, in agree-
ment with the knife adhesion tests previously discussed (ASTM
D6677 adhesion Rating 10).
TSA with TMIC Patch in Action
The integrity of the TMIC coating that was applied as a re-
pair patch to TSA did not appear to change as the exposure
temperature increased from 200 C to 400 C. Figures 19 and 20
show, respectively, SEM and optical images of the repair system
at 400 C and the unbroken and tortuous path of the aluminum
flake platelets. Figure 21 shows the X-ray map and distribution
of the main elements in the TMIC sample exposed to 400 C,
namely silicon, aluminum, and carbon (titanium, although vital to
the efficiency of TMIC, was below the detection limit). It is inter-
esting to see the widespread distribution of carbon from carbon
compounds that will have been thermally decomposed.19
Coating #1 in Action
As shown in Fig. 22, the coating was dense, and showed less
than 1% porosity over the full test temperature range. The
interface between the two coats during application was not visi-
ble. The coating structure consisted of the polymer matrix with
entrained fillers and pigments with a wide variety of shapes and
sizes (rods, plates, blocks, irregular fractured shapes). The mor-
phology, distribution, and volume of the solid phases in Coating
19
#1 would not be expected to present such a tortuous path for
the ingress of water, oxygen, and deleterious salts compared
to TMIC. It is noteworthy that at 400 C, the primer is cohesively
stressed and shears, leaving a thin film of Coating #1 adhered
to the carbon steel substrate (Fig. 23).
Coating #2 in Action
The microstructure of Coating #2 was similar to Coating #1, but
appeared to be simpler, with the larger particles dominating the
morphology (Fig. 24). The coating retained good adhesion to
the substrate with no corrosion products visible at the sub-
strate. At 300 C, the onset of an intra-coat cohesive fracture line
was discerned, where the MIO pigment in the primer was seen
at the primer surface. By 400 C, the coating had lost integrity
and fractured, which allowed the ingress of the hot salt solution
to reach the carbon steel substrate. The resulting oxidation was
confirmed by the SEM images and EDXA on the carbon steel
substrate, where iron, oxygen (likely iron oxide), and chloride
ions were detected.
The cracks were filled with epoxy during sample preparation,
helping to keep the coating sample intact during preparation
(Fig. 25). These cracks served as a pathway for oxidation and
corrosion on the substrate. Based on the space within the coat-
ing filled with fluorescent green epoxy, at 400 C, the apparent
porosity of Coating #2 was about 9% (Fig. 26).
TMIC in Action
The SEM images showed that there was virtually no porosity
in TMIC (less than 1%) and the coating microstructure did not
appear to change as the temperature increased from 100 C to
400 C. With no cracking or disbonding, the microstructure of
TMIC remained essentially unchanged over the full temperature
range, as was also observed for TSA (Figs. 27 and 28).
At 400 C, the TMIC microstructure was found to be fully
intact with no evidence of degradation of the matrix (Fig. 28).
The coating morphology consisted of a dense array of leafing
aluminum platelets in a silicon-based resin system. Interestingly,
TMIC had been applied at a lower film thickness than any other
coating under test, and there was no evidence of separation or
opening between the platelets. This may be in part due to the
overlapping and interweaving nature of the aluminum platelets,
thereby providing additional tensile strength in the circumferen-
tial orientation. The aluminum flake may potentially further im-
prove coating integrity and performance at high temperatures
by producing a reduced thermal differential or insulating effect
across the coating from better heat transfer characteristics.
General Discussion of the CIA
Previous work by the authors17 showed that TMIC technology
was an excellent proposition for high heat and under-insulation
service, and would make a perfect complementary product
strategy for TSA. It was argued that TMIC could be used to
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

repair and extend the life of TSA. In the present work, not only
did TMIC perform almost as well as TSA in a stand-alone mode
at 7-8 mils DFT, but it was virtually unaffected as a repair patch
to TSA even at temperatures up to 400 C. More work needs
to be undertaken, however, because of a hair line crack that
developed at the transition between the TMIC and TSA at tem-
peratures close to 400 C. More importantly, TMIC was shown
to have heat resistance and corrosion resistance properties far
superior to the other high-heat coatings investigated.
As a CIA agent, TMIC ranked #1 among the liquid-applied
coatings by a considerable margin. Its barrier properties based
on the CUI experiments (including cyclic immersion and EIS
studies) revealed superior performance. Examination of the
TMIC microstructure using optical microscopy, SEM, and X-ray
mapping all confirmed that TMIC performs as a flexible coating
in the CUI range of 60 C to 120 C, and at elevated temperatures
up to 400 C. In addition TMIC had superior post-test adhesion
than either Coating #1 or Coating #2. It was particularly inter-
esting to note that EIS confirmed what is known about TMIC
technology in that the inorganic polymer does not achieve full
cross-linking until heated beyond 100 C.
Aside from the successful applications in the field, these
studies strongly indicate that the specification of TMIC tech-
nology for facility owners in the industrial, marine and offshore
sectors could be a step forward for CUI mitigation, particularly
if ultra high (>200 C) cyclic environments are involved. Depend-
ing on the temperature, the application of the CIA agent TMIC
should reduce the number of costly CUI inspections, cut the
cost of pipe maintenance, lower life cycle costs, and markedly
assist risk management practice.
Case Histories
Going Undercover with a TMIC Agent
Our hero has prevailed! All his strivings, sacrifices, and tra-
vails have been worth it. His has been a fact-finding journey
of discovery into labyrinths of intrigue; a secret operation into
untrammelled territory. The covert agent list was in safe hands
once again; the lives of many were saved; the balance of power
was assured, and our hero is ready to tackle the next assign-
ment.
We too, have been on a journey of discovery, albeit more of a
technical kind with our own undercover agents. As you can see
our travels inside the world of coatings under insulation have
been no less stimulating, no less revealing. And we too, are
ready for the next exciting assignment in the realm of protective
coatings.
No matter how well it is designed, a laboratory simulation of
a service environment will only approximate, or serve to indi-
cate, what might be expected to happen in real life conditions.
Accelerated performance will never fully reflect how a CIA agent
will perform in real life service with all the attendant variables.
That said, the following case histories outline the successful
20
performance of TMIC in actual service conditions, success
which could reasonably be anticipated based upon Operation
High Heat.
FranceTMIC Protection of TSA Field Joints
In 2007, in a refinery in France, some piping that was coated
with TSA was overlapped with TMIC technology on the welded
field joints. Given that welded joints are particularly suscepti-
ble to corrosion, TMIC technology was chosen for its barrier
properties and high heat protection up to 400 C. Interestingly,
a traditional thin film silicone aluminum had not met the facility
owners expectations and was subsequently replaced with a
TMIC coating (Figs. 29 and 30).
Because of heat stresses created during welding, the welds
are areas most at risk from corrosion. TMIC was applied on-site
by roller and without involving hot work to protect field joints
with TSA.
Texas Gas Dryer Unit
Gas dryer units in a Texas refinery with a history of rapid deteri-
oration of coatings under insulation were selected for the first
industrial field trial of TMIC technology. The dryer units cycle
between -20 and 230 C over a 4- to 5-day cycle. Previously,
several different polymeric coating technologies had been
used to protect the dryers, and, in all cases, the coatings had
failed within 6 to 12 months of service. Because of the lack of
success with other coatings, and the inability to apply TSA to
the on-site structures, the refinery decided to try TMIC to solve
the CUI problem.
In 2004, the TMIC coating was applied to the dryers.
Because of site safety and operational limitations, abrasive
blasting was not possible, so the surface preparation consisted
of SSPC-SP 2 and SP 3, hand and power tool cleaning, followed
by two coats of the TMIC coating for a total DFT of 8-10 mils.
One year later, the dryer units were inspected, showing no
rusting or coating degradation (Fig. 31). At present, the dryers
have operated for over 6 years without any indications of CUI.
CIA CONCLUSIONS
TSA
TSA and TMIC both had similar performance and were the best
of the four coatings during the CUI cyclic test runs. The majority
of visible rusting was limited to the 390 C to 445 C section of
the pipe. No blistering, flaking, or cracking was observed on the
coating on either of the CUI test runs. However, minute pin-
points of rust could be observed from 140 C to 390 C after CUI
cyclic testing.
During the cyclic immersion-heat testing, TSA performed
the best, showing no signs of blistering, cracking, or flaking.
While pinpoints of rust were visible from 135 C to 445 C along
the pipe in some instances, they were minuscule, few in number,
and appeared to have little effect on the surrounding coating.
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

No significant increase in severity occurred to these pinpoints,
even after 6 weeks of immersion and heating cycles.
The low EIS values were representative of the coatings me-
tallic nature and hence low electrical resistance. The impedance
of the coating increased over the course of CUI cyclic testing,
implying porosity reduction, a desirable attribute of thermal
spray coatings.
As expected, the TSA coating exhibited significant true
porosity, which did not appear to be a factor with performance
because the steel substrate was free of any evidence of
oxidation or corrosion beneath the TSA. The TSA coating also
appeared to retain bond integrity along the fusion line between
the TSA and the steel substrate at all locations, including the
400 C location.
Coating #1
Coating #1 performed relatively poorly, with a major loss in
performance at temperature above 250 C. From 210 C to 250 C,
Coating #1 performed better, with little deterioration observed
below 190C.
Coating #1 showed no signs of blistering or flaking during
the CUI test, but consistently showed high amounts of
non-preferentially oriented cracking from 250 C to 445 C. The
cracking was tied to the development of flaking and loss of
coating adhesion during immersion testing.
EIS tests showed that the barrier properties of Coating #1
were very good at 100 C, but fell significantly, mostly as a result
of cracking and physical deterioration, as the temperature
increased. However, at about 400 C where a small ring of the
coating was relatively crack-free, the barrier properties were
higher than those of the coating at 300 C (where cracking was
observed).
Coating #2
Coating # 2 performed relatively poorly and saw a major loss in
performance at temperatures from 290 C to 445 C as a result
of rusting, blistering, cracking, and flaking, accompanied by
corrosion of the steel substrate. From 250 C to 290 C, its per-
formance was better, with little visible deterioration below 250
C. The deterioration became increasingly more severe during
cyclic immersion testing, and after 6 weeks rusting and flaking
were observed to temperatures as low as 210 C.
The barrier properties of Coating #2 dropped significantly
at temperatures above 200 C, which coincided visually with the
performance of the coating in both CUI runs, and after immer-
sion testing.
SEM images, optical microscopy and X-ray maps showed the
coating contained coarse MIO flakes within a silicon based binder
matrix. The coating matrix appears to break down and fracture
at higher temperatures resulting in coating integrity failure. The
coating fractures allow for hot saline solutions to contact the
carbon steel substrate and cause corrosion of the steel pipe.
21
TMIC
Applied to carbon steel pipes, and under repetitive cyclic
thermal conditions, TMIC offers thermal resistance and
corrosion resistance in the critical CUI temperature range of
-4 C to 175 C. The performance of TMIC is equal to or better
than the other coatings in this range. However TMIC outper-
forms the other liquid coatings at temperatures from 175 C
to 400 C.
Both TMIC and TSA performed similarly, with both coatings
sharing the best performance of the coatings during both CUI
cyclic tests. The TMIC coating performed consistently well
at temperatures below 335 C, with slight degradation occur-
ring between 335 C and 445 C. This was also true of the TMIC
brush-applied repair patch tested on the TSA coated pipe.
TMIC did not have any blistering, flaking, or cracking under
CUI cyclic temperature testing. After additional testing in cyclic
immersion, hairline cracks, and flaking were observed around
pinpoints of rust above 390 C, which seemed to indicate that
the rust pinpoints had increased in severity due to the cyclic
immersion testing. Below 390 C, TMIC performed consistently
well.
TMIC developed excellent barrier properties after CUI cyclic
testing up to 300 C. However, at 400 C, the impedance plum-
meted into the range observed for TSA while otherwise demon-
strating excellent performance in visual, microscopic/SEM, and
physical tests. It is speculated that the close packing of alumi-
num flakes in the resin network may have resulted in initiation of
fusion at 400 C. As a result, TMIC could have developed some
of the metallic characteristics of TSA and thus exhibit reduced
electrical resistance.
Operation High Heat Coatings in Action: Ranking
Overall, during CUI cyclic testing, the TSA and TMIC coatings
provided the best performance for temperatures up to 445
C. Coating #1 had the next best performance, with varying
degrees of deterioration beginning above 100 C. Coating #2
had the poorest performance, with degradation above 200
C being severe and significantly worse than that seen for
Coating #1.
So what is the final analysis? Mission Impossible? Or
is it Mission Possible? The answer depends on the coating
agent and the operation temperature. Before the mission, all
undercover agents were said to be capable of effective CUI
countermeasures in Operation High Heat. However, the mission
exposed that some important claims derived from fine work of
coating formulators and material scientists were found wanting.
In the present investigation, the old benchmark agent TSA and
the new technology agent TMIC could stand the heat. But the
new technology Coating #1 and Coating #2 could not. As in the
movie Mission Impossible, we must all wait for a new adventure.
In the meantime, industrial, marine, and offshore facilities have
two great coating agents to recruit for CUI.
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.
 22

Acknowledgements 18. Brown, O., High Heat Coatings: An Overview of Coating

The authors wish to acknowledge Mark Schilling of Corrosion Performance and Product Characteristics, JPCL March
Probe for his keen insights into the properties of thermal spray 2008. p. 10.
aluminum (TSA) and the CUI process. In addition, the authors 19. Hare, C., Paint Film Degradation Mechanisms and
wish to acknowledge Peter Salvati, art director, JPCL for the art- Control, SSPC 01-14, Thermal Degradation of Binders,
work; and Brian Goldie, technical editor of JPCL for his editing Chap. 45, p. 379, 2001.
assistance with a large manuscript. 20. Betzig, D., Qualification Testing of High Temperature
Coatings, 13th Middle East Conference and Exhibition,
REFERENCES Paper No. 10136.
1. Goldie, B., Kapsanis K., Corrosion Under Insulation: Basics 21. Gray, Linda G. S. and Bernard R. Appleman. EIS:
and Resources or Understanding, JPCL July 2009. p. 34. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy. A Tool To
2. Bock, P.P., MeLampy, M.F., Field Maintenance of Coating Predict Remaining Coating Life? JPCL February 2003.
Systems, JPCL April 2009. p. 44. p. 66.
3. NACE Standard SP0198-2010, Control of Corrosion
Under Thermal Insulation and Fireproofing Materials A
Systems Approach, (Houston, Texas; NACE 2010). Mike ODonoghue, PhD, is the Director
4. Hart, Gordon, H., The Toolbox for Prevention of Corrosion of Engineering and Technical Services
Under Insulation, Insulation Outlook, March, 2008. for International Paint LLC. He has 30
5. Uhligs Corrosion Handbook, 2nd Edition, Review, R.W. years of experience in the protective
Editor, p.566. coatings industry.
6. Fitzgerald, B.J., Lazar, P. III, Kay, R.M., Winnik, D., Strategies
to Prevent Corrosion Under Insulation in Petrochemical
Industry Piping, Corrosion 2003, Paper No. 03029.
7. Cunningham, T., Avery, R., Thermal Spray Aluminum
for Corrosion Protection Some Practical Experience in
the Offshore Industry, SSPC Orlando, Florida, 1998. Vijay Datta, MS, is the Director of
8. Goulette, B., TSA Coatings for Risers and Offshore Industrial Maintenance for Interna-
Piping, Presentation at Pipeline Coatings Seminar, NACE tional Paint LLC. He has more than 40
Fall Committee Week/2002, Dallas, TX, Sept. 813, 2002. years of experience in the marine and
The author reviews several researchers findings on the protective coatings industry.
durability of TSA in corrosive atmospheric environments.
9. Parks, A.R., Aluminum Sprayed Coatings Onboard US Navy
Ships A Ten-Year Overview, www.inmetl.com/OnNavy 10.
10. Harrup, Eurocorr 2008, Workshop on Corrosion Under
Insulation Case Studies.
11. Mitschke, H., Informal Technology Exchange presentation
of NACE Corrosion 2007. Adrian Andrews is the Technology
12. Kane, R.D., Chauviere, M., Evaluation of Steel and TSA Development Manager, International
Coating in a Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI) Environment, Paint LLC. He has 30 years of ex-
NACE Corrosion 2008, Paper No. 08036. perience in the protective coatings
13. Schilling, M.S. Personal Communication, November 2011. industry.
14. Thomason, W.H., Olsen, S., Haugen, T., Fischer, K.,
Deterioration of Thermal Sprayed Aluminum Coatings on
Hot Risers Due to Thermal Cycling, Corrosion 2004.
15. Halliday, M., Preventing Corrosion Under Insulation New
Generation Solutions for an Age Old Problem,
Corrosion and Prevention 2006, Paper 014.
16. Knudsen, O., Rogne, T., Rossland, T., Rapid Degradation of
Painted TSA, NACE Paper No. 04023, 2004, p. 6.
17. ODonoghue, M., Datta, V.J., and Aben, T., From Trauma to
Transcendence: Corrosion Under Insulation, NACE North
Western Conference, February 15-18, 2010 Calgary, Alberta.

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.


Sean Adlem is the Sales Manager,
Alberta Region Protective Coatings,
International Paint LLC. Sean has
over 20 years of experience in the
protective coatings industry.
Matt Giardina, Business Develop-
ment Oil & Gas Market for Inter-
national Paint LLC, has 7 years of
experience in the coating industry.
Nicole de Varennes is Coatings
Laboratory Manager for RAE Engi-
neer- ing and Inspection Ltd. She
has 7 years of experience in various
aspects of industrial coatings.
23
Linda G. S. Gray, MSc, is a Senior Ma-
terials Special- ist for RAE Engineer-
ing and Inspection Ltd. and has over
20 years of experience with industrial
coatings.
Damien Lachat is a Coatings Tech-
nologist for RAE Engineering and In-
spection Ltd., where he is involved in
various aspects of industrial coatings
testing and research.
Bill Johnson, AScT, is the Manager
of Laboratory Services with Acuren
Group Inc., in Richmond, BC. Bill has
20 years of experience in materials
testing, failure analysis, scanning
electron microscopy, and energy
dispersive X-ray analysis.
JPCL
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

When Undercover Agents areTested to
Coatings in Action (CIA) and Corrosion Under
Insulation (CUI) at High Temperature
By Mike ODonoghue, Ph.D., Vijay Datta, MS, Adrian Andrews, Ph.D.,
and Sean Adlem, International Paint LLC; Linda G. S. Gray, MSc,
Coating Consultant; Tara Chahl and Nicole de Varennes, CET,
RAE Engineering and Inspection Ltd.; and Bill Johnson, AScT,
Acuren Group Inc.
F
or industrial, marine, and offshore facility owners, the
cost consequences of corrosion under insulation
(CUI) can be intolerable in terms of lost production,
chemical spills, environmental cleanup, and health
and safety implications. Hence, it is very important to
implement carefully designed CUI mitigation strategies.
Specialty coatings can be excellent tools for CUI mitigation
strategies.1 The authors showed in previous laboratory inves-
tigations using a CUI cyclic test, that coated carbon steel pipe
insulated with Cal-Sil (calcium silicate) saturated with a 1% NaCl
(sodium chloride) salt solution performed best with either ther-
mal spray aluminum (TSA) or a spray-applied titanium modified
inorganic copolymer (TMIC).2,3 The raison detre for the use of
calcium silicate as an insulation material was because it readily
absorbs and wicks moisture and can hold about 2040 times its
weight in water,4 thus representing a worst-case scenario.
The cyclic temperature range used in the earlier work was 95
24
iStockphoto/THEPALMER
Editors Note: This article is the second part of a
series on corrosion under insulation. The first part,
When Undercover Agents Can't Stand the Heat:
Coatings in Action and the Netherworld of Corrosion
Under Insulation, appeared in the February 2012
JPCL. This article is based on a presentation given at
SSPC 2013, the annual conference of SSPC: The So-
ciety for Protective Coatings, held Jan. 1417, 2013,
in San Antonio, TX. It is available in the conference
Proceedings (sspc.org).
C to 445 C.2, 3 The temperature span was intended to ensure
that the coated pipe test pieces were exposed to the NACE
RP01985 critical corrosion temperature range (4 C to 175 C
for carbon steel; 50 C to 175 C for stainless steel) and higher.
Interestingly, an anomalous finding from the earlier work was
that corrosion on wet and insulated bare steel pipe appeared to
occur at temperatures higher than those known for the corro-
sion of dry carbon steel.5, 6 This suggested that temperatures,
measured by thermocouples on bare steel pipe encased in dry
insulation, which were used to indicate temperatures of coated
steel pipe encased in wet insulation, were incorrect and needed
to be checked to provide greater accuracy. These new tem-
perature measurements were carried out as part of this new CUI
study.
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 1: Experimental set-up (left to right)
Stainless steel pipe and carbon steel pipe
The primary aim of the current investigation was to evaluate
coating performance on both carbon steel and stainless steel
pipes in the temperature range for CUI and at elevated tempera-
tures approaching 600 C. Utilizing the Cyclic Pipe test, the cy-
clic temperature resistance of a new member of the TMIC class
of coatings was compared and contrasted with one of the other
specialty coatings studied in the previous work, an inorganic
coating containing micaceous iron oxide (hereinafter Coating A
and designated Coating #2 in the former study). Both the orig-
inal TMIC coating tested and the new TMIC coating evaluated
in this study were aluminum filled. They were formulated to pro-
vide similar flexibility, be unaffected by intra-film stresses during
high temperature cycling in the typical CUI temperature range,
and withstand cycling and continuous operation between am-
bient and elevated temperatures. In the present investigation,
the new TMIC coating was touted to perform up to 600 C, much
greater than the 450 C limit for the earlier version.
Experimental
Part A: Temperature Profile Studies on Bare Steel Pipe
In the authors previous work, the temperature profile of the
steel pipe under wet insulation was assumed not to be dissim-
ilar to the temperature profile measured by thermocouples
under dry insulation. This study was undertaken to characterize
the temperature profile under wet conditions and determine
what, if any, differences occurred compared to the dry condi-
tion.
The materials and procedures were identical to those used in
the previous CUI cyclic test,2,3 except that under the dry condi-
tion, only the temperature was cycled. Two duplicate, insulated,
bare steel test pipes were prepared. The dry condition was run
first (over a two-week duration), followed by the wet condition
(two weeks) using the same duplicate pipes.
The pipe was 60 cm long and 6 cm in outside diameter, with a
5-millimeter-thick wall. Thermocouples to measure the surface
temperature of the pipe under the insulation were positioned at
intervals varying from 20 mm to 50 mm, from the bottom (hot
end) to the top (cold end) of the pipe, for a total of 18 thermo-
25
couples. Each pipe was en-
cased in 5-centimeter-thick
calcium silicate insulation
sleeves.
In this study, an additional
eight thermocouples were
added to the pipe to measure
the temperature within the
insulation as a function of dis-
tance from the pipe surface.
In this way, the temperature
profile across the insulation
was determined at 10, 20, 30
and 40 mm intervals from the
pipe surface, at 150 mm and
450 mm from the bottom (hot
end) of the pipe.
Fig. 2: Pipe sample schematic The CUI cyclic test proce-
dure was as follows. At the
beginning of the day, one liter of a 1% NaCl solution was poured
slowly into the insulation surrounding the pipe at the top of
the pipe. The pipe was then placed on a hot plate, which was
immediately turned on. The hot end of the pipe reached approx-
imately 600 C within two to three hours. After 8 hours on the hot
plate, the insulated pipe was removed from the heat and placed
in a shallow pan. One more liter of 1% NaCl solution was poured
into the insulation, whereupon the insulated pipe was allowed
to cool overnight. This procedure was repeated for five days a
week (Monday through Friday), for two weeks. Almost all of the
NaCl solution was absorbed by the insulation, with a minimal
amount of solution flowing through the insulation, either to the
pan or the hot plate.
Each morning, after the first day, the pipe was weighed when
it was cool, prior to starting the next days cycle.
The temperature profile, determined under dry conditions,
was determined using the same procedure, except that the
brine was omitted. A stable, reproducible profile was achieved
within 2 to 3 hours, and the measurements were deemed com-
plete after two days.
Part B: High Temperature CUI Studies
on Coated Carbon and Stainless Steel Pipes
The CUI cyclic test previously employed by the authors was
used again because it provided an accelerated and significantly
more aggressive environment, which was favored by some facil-
ity owners.2,3 A few modifications and changes were incorpo-
rated, such as the addition of stainless steel pipe, application
of a coating to each half of the pipe, and increasing the testing
temperature.
Sections of carbon steel and stainless steel pipe were
abrasive blast cleaned to an SSPC-SP 10, Near-White Metal
standard, using aluminum oxide grit. A 23 mil jagged profile
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.
 26

weeks, for a total of 30 cycles, whereupon the insulation was

0 to 180
Coating TMC
180 to 360
Coating A
Fig. 3: Diagram of pipe
was obtained. The TMIC coating was applied to one half of the
pipe (1 coat @ ca 8 mils DFT), and Coating A was applied to
the other half (2 coats @ ca 6 mils DFT/coat), along the length
of the pipe, respectively. The liquid coatings were applied by air
spray and cured at 25 C for seven days.
A pre-formed, 5-centimeter-thick calcium silicate pipe insula-
tion was fastened around each pipe in a clam-shell fashion. Alu-
minum foil was wrapped around the insulated pipe and secured
with zip ties, as shown in Figure 1. Both ends of the insulation
were left open to facilitate the entry and drainage of the NaCl
wetting solution. Figure 2 shows the pipe sample schematic.
The heat distribution on the hot plate was verified using
temperature indicator crayons from 450 C to 750 C. The carbon
steel and stainless steel temperature profiles were placed at the
650 C heat position.
The CUI cyclic test procedure of heating and adding 1% NaCl
solution to the porous calcium silicate insulation is documented
above and in the authors previous work.2,3
The liquid was mostly absorbed by the insulation, with only
a small amount of drainage from the bottom. The temperature
profiles for the carbon and stainless steel pipes were slightly
different. The procedure was repeated five days a week for six
removed from the pipes and the coating performance was eval-
uated.
The surface temperature of the pipes under dry insulation
was determined with two pipe samples that were identical to
the coated pipe samples, except that the carbon steel and
stainless steel pipes were uncoated and thermocouples were
placed between the insulation and the steel at 5 cm intervals.
The temperature of the hot plate was adjusted such that the
temperature gradient obtained along the pipe length with wet
insulation was 72 C to 560 C for the carbon steel and 77 C to
600 C for the stainless steel pipe, as shown in Tables 1a and 1b.
The hot plate settings were maintained for the duration of the
testing with the coated and bare steel pipe samples.
To facilitate detailed analysis of the coatings performance
after CUI cyclic testing, each coated half of the pipe, as shown
in Figure 3, was analyzed in 5 cm increments, moving from 0
mm (560 C) to 600 mm (72 C) for the carbon steel pipe and 0
mm (600 C) to 600 mm (77 C) for the stainless steel pipe. In the
adhesion analysis, each area was divided into four test areas,
with results reported based on the average temperature of that
area.
Coating performance was evaluated based on visual exam-
ination and adhesion assessment (ASTM D6677). Visual ex-
amination included color change, degree of rusting, blistering,
flaking, and cracking (ISO 4628, Sections 2 through 5).
Results
Temperature Profile Studies
on Bare Steel PipesWet Insulation
The results for days 1, 3, and 5 are shown in Figures 4a, 4b,
and 4c (pp. 3637). Complete results for days 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10

Table 1a: Distance along Carbon Steel Pipe and Corresponding Temperature
Distance from
Bottom (mm) 050 50100 100150 150200 200250 250300 300350 350400 400450 450500 500550 550600
Approx. Wet
Temp Range
(C) 560515 515400 400375 375285 285265 265207 207190 190160 160118 18899 9987 8772
Approx. Dry
Temp Range
(C) 540465 465415 415391 391300 300280 280260 260240 240235 235200 200180 180150 150100

Table 1b: Distance along Stainless Steel Pipe and Corresponding Temperature
Distance from
Bottom (mm) 050 50100 100150 150200 200250 250300 300350 350400 400450 450500 500550 550600
Approx. Wet
Temp Range
(C) 600536 536460 460365 365305 305250 250120 120112 112102 10298 9895 9592 9277
Approx. Dry
Temp Range
(C) 600520 520450 450370 370325 325275 275195 195180 180170 170150 150125 125110 11095

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.


TEMPERATURE PROFILE OF PIPE SURFACE: DAY 1
Fig. 4a: Day 1 of CUI cyclic testing with hydration
can be found in Appendix I, Figures 1a to 1e, available in full at
paintsquare.com.
Each figure shows the temperature profile of the pipe as
a function of distance from the hot end (on the hot plate) at
various time intervals during the daily heating cycle. Zero hours
refers to the start of the day where 1 liter of 1% NaCl solution
was poured into the insulation and into the pipe (at ambient
temperature), immediately before the pipe was placed on the
cold hot plate (which was then turned on.) Temperature profile
curves were obtained at various intervals for the following 8
hours, after which the pipe was removed from the hot plate,
another liter of 1% NaCl was poured into the insulation, and the
pipe left overnight.
Weight Change of the Pipe
The initial mass of the pipe with dry insulation was estimated to
be 3.2 kg (7 lbs) made up of 2.7 kg (6 lbs) for the pipe and 0.45
kg (1 lb) for the insulation.
After the first 5 days of cyclic wetting and heating, the pipe
plus insulation had a mass of 13.4 kg (29.4 lbs), an increase
of 10.2 kg (22.4 lbs). Over the 5 days, 10 liters of 1% NaCl had
been added to the insulation. Therefore, very little water evapo-
rated from the insulation during the first five days.
After ten days, the pipe plus insulation had a mass of 14.0 kg
(30.8 lbs), indicating that the pipe had reached a steady state.
The insulation was presumably fully saturated, and the water
loss by evaporative boiling was roughly equal to the amount of
brine introduced.
The rate of evaporation was presumably matched with the
rate at which brine was introduced into the insulation at 5 days.
27
TEMPERATURE PROFILE OF PIPE SURFACE: DAY 3
Fig. 4b: Day 3 of CUI cyclic testing with hydration
This was consistent with the observation of steaming (water
vapor release) from the top of the pipe during the initial hours of
heating.
Temperature Profiles: Day 1
The pipe temperature increased rapidly as the heating cycle
was applied. Over the 8-hour duration, the temperature profile
curves tend toward the shape and values of that recorded for
the dry pipe (Fig. 4a). The deviation from the dry curve is mini-
mal at the high temperature end (bottom) of the pipe, presum-
ably because the insulation is still dry, or has dried out from the
heating. The deviation from the dry curve at the low tempera-
ture end (top) of the pipe is considerably larger, presumably due
to the loss of heat into the moisture present in the insulation.
Temperature Profiles: Days 25 and Days 610
The temperature profile progressively changed from days 1
through 5, after which little further change was observed.
The temperature profile at the high temperature end of the
pipe was rather erratic from days 2 to 4, especially at the begin-
ning of the heating cycle (Figure 4b). The behavior, consisting of
high and low temperature variations along the length of the pipe
was attributed to random dry and wet spots in the insulation.
The erratic behavior stopped at day 5, presumably because the
insulation became fully saturated with brine (Fig. 4c).
The temperature of the pipe after 8 hours progressively
decreased from days 2 to 5, particularly at the high temperature
end of the pipe. After day 5, the portion of the pipe from 100
mm to 275 mm appeared to reach a limit of 100 C after 4 hours
of heating. The heat supplied to the pipe resulted in evaporative
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

TEMPERATURE PROFILE OF PIPE SURFACE: DAY 5
Fig. 4c: Day 5 of CUI cyclic testing with hydration
boiling of the water saturated insulation, limiting the tempera-
ture to 100 C. The bottom (hot end) 50 mm of the pipe reached
temperatures up to 350 C, suggesting that it quickly dried out
due to heat input from the hot plate. Nevertheless, the tempera-
ture remained about 100 C less than the dry pipe. The top (cold
end) of the pipe above 275 mm showed significantly less overall
change in the 5 days, suggesting full saturation with brine had
been achieved there first.
The difference between the dry pipe temperature profile and
the 8-hour wet pipe profile progressively increased from day
1 to 5, after which little further change was observed. After 5
days, the brine that had been introduced into the insulation de-
pressed the temperature at the low and high temperature ends
of the pipe by about 75 C and up to 200 C, respectively.
In view of the water saturation, high rates of corrosion would
be expected above 100 mm from the hot end. This was consis-
tent visually with corrosion on the pipe, as previously docu-
mented.2,3
The temperature profiles showed little further change after
day 5, indicating a steady state had been achieved where evap-
oration balanced the amount of brine poured into the insulation.
Temperature Profile Across the Insulation
The temperature profile results across the thickness of the
insulation at 150 mm and 450 mm from the hot end of the pipe
are shown in Appendix II, Figures 2a to 2e, available in full at
paintsquare.com. In this article, Figures 5a, 5b, and 5c (p. 38)
show results for days 1, 5, and 10, respectively.
28
150 mm from the Hot End of the Pipe
On day 1, when the insulation was mostly dry, the tempera-
ture across the insulation gradually increased over the 8-hour
heating cycle. The pipe surface temperature was 265 C, and
the temperature within the insulation was 160 C and 90 C,
respectively, at 10 mm and 40 mm from the pipe surface. From
days 2 to 5, the insulation gradually became saturated with
brine and lost its insulating characteristics. The temperature
gradient across the insulation decreased significantly, and little
further change was observed after 5 days. After 2 hours into
the heating cycle for the water saturated condition, the pipe
surface temperature was 100 C, and the temperature across
the insulation was relatively constant at about 95 C. The brine
facilitated heat transfer within the insulation, resulting in both
rapid heating and the absence of a temperature gradient across
the insulation.
450 mm from the Hot End of the Pipe
The temperature profile across the insulation at the cool end of
the pipe was considerably different from the hot end.
On day 1, the temperature profile across the insulation sta-
bilized within about two hours. After 8 hours, the pipe surface
temperature was 80 C, and the temperature in the insulation
ranged from 62 C (10 mm from pipe surface) to 53 C (40 mm
from the pipe surface). Between 2 hours and 8 hours, the
temperature within the insulation dropped slightly, possibly the
result of the brine gradually diffusing throughout the insulation
in this area of the pipe.
From day 2 to day 10, as the insulation became progressively
more saturated with water, the temperature gradient across
the insulation dropped and the overall temperature remained
progressively closer to room temperature. After 4 to 8 hours of
heating, the insulation temperature finally started to increase
toward pipe temperature, but no significant temperature gra-
dient developed, presumably due to the thermal conductivity
of the brine. The pipe surface temperature dropped from 80
C on day 1, to 62 C on day 5, to 50 C on day 10. The difference
between pipe surface temperature and insulation temperature
gradually decreased over the 10-day interval from 20 C after 1
day to 6 C after 10 days (after 8 hours of heating).
Results Part B
CUI Studies on Coated Carbon and Stainless Steel Pipes
The appearance of the coated pipe samples after CUI cyclic
testing at high temperature is shown in Fig. 6 and the degree
of rusting is shown graphically in Fig. 7 (p. 42). Blistering and
flaking are not graphically presented, as they occurred under
only specific conditions. The adhesion results are presented in
Table 2.
Coating A In Action
Detailed pictures of Coating A after exposure to CUI cyclic test
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

conditions are shown in Figs. 8 and 9 (p. 42).
Carbon Steel Pipe
Small rust pinpoints (ISO 4628-3 Rating 1) (Fig. 7, p. 42) oc-
curred over the 100 C to 215 C temperature range. Also, a small
amount of rust stains were evident on the pipe exposed to the
450 C to 560 C temperature range (0 mm to 100 mm). The rust
stains from the 450 C to 560 C range were easily removed by
lightly abrading the coating surface, indicating the rust did not
originate from the steel substrate, but presumably came from
corrosion at the end of the steel pipe.
The adhesion of Coating A to the steel substrate was excel-
lent (Table 2). Virtually no coating could be removed by prying
with a stout knife except for a few tiny coating chips (~1 mm in
length), which disbonded cohesively at the region of the pipe
exposed to 240 C. Coating A showed no visible signs of blis-
tering, flaking, or cracking. Excluding rusting, Coating A had no
other visible changes except for moderate dulling above 375 C.
Stainless Steel Pipe
There was no evidence of rusting (ISO 4628-3 Rating 0), (Fig. 7,
p. 42) or blistering (ISO 4628-2) of Coating A along the entire
length of the pipe. However, cracking (ISO 4628-4) and flaking
of large coating chips (5 mm to 20 mm in length) occurred from
the pipes surface from 0 mm (600 C) to 100 mm (460 C). With
the exception of the flaking, the adhesion of Coating A to the
steel substrate was excellent (Table 2), and no coating could be
removed by prying with a stout knife.
TMIC In Action
Detailed pictures of TMIC after exposure to CUI in cyclic test
conditions are shown in Figs. 10 and 11 (p. 44).
Carbon Steel Pipe
No rusting occurred along the length of the pipe other than a
small amount of rust stain over the 450 C to 560 C temperature
range. The rust stains were easily removed by lightly abrading
the coating surface, indicating that the rust presumably came
from corrosion at the end of the steel pipe.
The TMIC showed no evidence of any blistering, flaking,
or cracking. The adhesion to the substrate of TMIC was very
good (Table 2). A very small amount of coating chips (12 mm
in length) disbonded cohesively and adhesively over the 75 C
to 240 C temperature range when the coating was pried with a
stout knife.
A slight loss of luster and moderate dulling of TMIC was most
pronounced in the 450 C to 500 C temperature range.
Stainless Steel Pipe
There was no evidence of rusting (ISO 4628-3 Rating 0, Fig. 7),
or blistering (ISO 4628-2) of TMIC along the entire length of
the pipe. However, cracking (ISO 4628-4) and flaking of large
29
coating chips (5 mm to 20 mm in length) occurred from the
pipes surface from 0 mm (600 C) to 100 mm (460 C). The TMIC
disbonded adhesively and cohesively even though one coat
was applied.
The adhesion to the substrate of the TMIC was very good
(Table 2, p. 40). A very small amount of coating chips (13 mm in
length) cohesively and adhesively disbonded over the 75 C to
175 C temperature range area when pried with a stout knife. A
slight loss of luster and dulling of TMIC was most pronounced in
the 320 C to 460 C temperature range.
General Discussion
Part A: Temperature Profile Studies
on Bare Steel Pipes
When the insulation was dry, the temperature gradually de-
creased from the hot end of the pipe to the cold end; when the
insulation was water saturated, the temperature did not change
gradually, but instead was arrested at 100 C between 100 mm
and 300 mm from the hot end. The arrest was speculated to
result from evaporative boiling of water from water saturated in-
sulation, which did not dry out during the heat cycle in this area.
Measurements of temperature through the thickness of the
insulation suggested that the insulation became water satu-
rated at the top of the pipe after about 2 days, and towards
the bottom of the pipe after 5 days. After water saturation, the
temperature within the insulation was similar to the pipe surface
temperature, and no significant temperature gradient occurred
across the insulation.
High rates of corrosion of bare steel pipe would be expected
over most of the pipe where the insulation remained wet and
the temperature was 100 C.
The results indicated the temperatures to which the CUI
coatings were subjected were considerably lower than predict-
ed from the temperature measurement profile on the pipe with
dry insulation.
In the authors previous studies of the CUI cyclic testing
performance of TSA, a TMIC coating, and two inorganic silicone
polymer coatings, a temperature range of 95 C to 445 C was
cited for the test pipes.
Differences of coating performance were generally observed
at the reported ranges of 210190 C, 245210 C, 285245 C,
335285 C, 390335 C, and 445390 C. The best of the four
coatings during the CUI cyclic test runs were TSA and TMIC.
Furthermore, both were markedly superior in performance to
Coating #1 and Coating #2 in that study. To reiterate, Coating #2
in the previous study is Coating A in the present study.
Also in the earlier work, corrosion was evidenced on bare
steel pipe subjected to the same CUI conditions as coated
pipes. In that case, a high density of small pits were seen at a
reported temperature of 445285 C, large pits at 285190 C,
and both small and large pits at 19095 C.
First and foremost, this new work shows that the introduc-
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

tion of brine into the insulation significantly reduces the pipe
surface temperature and insulating properties. In particular, if
the saturation is sufficient that dry-out cannot occur, the steel
pipe surface remains wetted by NaCl brine at elevated tempera-
ture, a condition producing high rates of corrosion. The earlier
reported temperatures were lower in reality. This explains why
corrosion on bare steel apparently seemed to occur on carbon
steel at temperatures higher than expected according to the re-
ceived wisdom.5, 6 Table 3 (p. 42) shows the temperature range
corrections based on the current investigations.
Notwithstanding the temperature corrections in Table 3, it is
important to note that the ranking of coating performance of
the four coatings remains unchanged. Applied to carbon steel
pipes, and under repetitive cyclic thermal conditions, other than
TSA, the TMIC coating rated to ca 400 C provided the best
thermal resistance and corrosion resistance in the critical CUI
temperature range of -4 C to 175 C.2, 3
Part B: CUI Studies On Coated
Carbon Stainless Steel Pipes
It is interesting to note the compositional differences between
carbon steel and stainless steel, the effect of temperature on
these steels, and what influence, if any, might result from re-ex-
posing coated carbon and steel pipes to the highest tempera-
tures sustained in the present CUI studies.
Carbon Steel Substrate
The pipe material used for the CUI investigation was reported
to be ASTM A513 (grade not reported), low carbon steel welded
pipe. This pipe is generally produced in the hot or cold rolled
condition. The microstructure of low carbon piping such as this
generally consists of ferrite and pearlite.
The upper temperature of the CUI studies was 600 C (1,113
F), below the transformation temperature of 723 C (1,333 F) for
steel. Below the transformation temperature, the phases pres-
ent at room temperature will remain stable, and not transform
to austenite. Some alteration of the microstructure in the form
of grain growth and spheroidization of pearlite may occur over
long-term exposure at high temperatures, but in general, the
properties of the steel will remain relatively consistent.
In general, the coefficient of thermal expansion for carbon
steel is 13.0 x 10-6 cm/cm C from 0 C (32 F) to 600 C (1,113 F).
For a 25 cm length of pipe, the total linear expansion expected
from room temperature to 600 C is 0.19 cm in length.
Stainless Steel Substrate
The stainless steel pipe used was reported to be a Type 304
austenitic stainless steel with a nominal composition of 812
weight percent nickel, 1820 weight percent chromium, and
0.08 weight percent carbon maximum, with the balance iron.
The microstructure of this material will be predominately aus-
tenite with some ferrite islands possibly present. The stainless
30
property is achieved by the tenacious surface oxide layer that
is formed due to the alloying of chromium and nickel. This layer
may be damaged in the presence of chloride solutions, result-
ing in pitting attack.
Type 304 stainless steels may be susceptible to sensitization
at temperatures from 550 C to 800 C. At this temperature range,
chromium may migrate to austenite grain boundaries, result-
ing in a thin zone of chromium depletion adjacent to the grain
boundaries. This chromium-depleted zone is susceptible to
intergranular stress corrosion cracking in aggressive environ-
ments, including chloride solutions.
In general, the coefficient of thermal expansion for stainless
steel is 17.3 x 10-6 cm/cm C from 0 C (32 F) to 600 C (1,113 F).
For a 25 cm length of pipe, the total linear expansion expected
from room temperature to 600 C is 0.26 cm in length. This will
remain more linear from room temperature due to the austenitic
matrix present.
Coatings on Carbon Steel
Testing showed that TMIC was virtually unaffected by the
high-temperature heating and water saturation under insulation.
There was no evidence of blistering, rusting, adhesion loss, or
flaking of TMIC. TMIC contains aluminum flake pigmentation
and is a very flexible coating. While Coating A also performed
well and did not suffer any blistering or flaking, it did sustain a
small amount adhesion loss at 240 C and some pin point rusting
occurred where the coating was exposed to the 100 C to 215 C
temperature range.
Coating A contains MIO pigmentation and is not as flexible
as TMIC.2, 3 As seen in the earlier studies, TMIC somewhat out-
performed Coating A in the high temperature microenvironment
of the CUI cyclic test.
Coatings on Stainless Steel
Up to a temperature of 460 C, testing showed that TMIC and
Coating A performed almost as well on stainless steel as they
did on carbon steel pipes. Indeed, there were no observations
of blistering, rusting, adhesion loss, or flaking in the tempera-
ture range of 70 C to 460 C for either coating. However, severe
flaking occurred with both TMIC and Coating A due to exposure
to the temperature range of 460 C to 600 C. An investigation
of this phenomenon using metallographic and other analysis
will be undertaken to fully understand the mechanism present.
Some possible scenarios for the coating disbondment are
significant sensitization and intergranular attack of the stainless
steel during the cooler temperature cycles in the presence of
the chloride solution. The higher thermal expansion coefficient
may also contribute to the coating bond degradation at the
elevated temperature.
TMIC also showed some separation in the coating at the
temperature range of 460 C to 500 C.
Overall, TMIC performed as well as it did in previous studies
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

at lower temperatures.2, 3 Coating A performed better than it
did in previous studies at lower temperatures.2, 3
At the time of writing, the authors CUI research is continu-
ing. Shorter carbon steel and stainless steel pipes have been
coated with TMIC and Coating A and are being subjected to the
same CUI test regimen as presented here. The dimensions of
the pipes are 6 cm in diameter and 30 cm in length with a 5 mm
thick wall. The results of that work will be presented at a later
date together with any optical microscopy and SEM investiga-
tions.
Conclusions
One coat of TMIC and a two-coat system of Coating A showed
similar performance under the applied CUI test conditions on
both carbon and stainless steel pipes. On carbon steel pipes,
TMIC was marginally better in that there was no evidence of
blistering, rusting, cracking, flaking, or adhesion loss, whereas
Coating A exhibited some pinhole rusting over the 100 C to 215
C temperature range.
When TMIC and Coating A were exposed to higher tempera-
tures on carbon and stainless steel pipes, there appeared to be
more compositional changes in stainless steel than in carbon
steel at higher temperatures. This resulted in both coatings
disbonding when applied to stainless steel.
The undercover agent TMIC performed as well as it did in
previous studies at lower temperatures. The undercover agent
Coating A performed better than it did in previous studies at
lower temperatures.
The temperatures to which the CUI coatings were subjected
were considerably lower than initially predicted from a tem-
perature measurement profile on pipe with dry conditions. The
introduction of water and or brine into the insulation material
significantly reduces the pipe surface temperature and insulat-
ing characteristics.
The insulation type also plays a role in determining the corro-
sion resistance and performance of CUI coatings and therefore
any prediction of coating lifetimes from short term aggressive
testing methodologies is difficult. (Although accepted as true,
this is not a conclusion of this study.)
The overall performance of a CUI coating is most likely insu-
lation-type specific. Further work is underway to evaluate these
coatings under a range of insulation types.
References
1. Goldie, B., Kapsanis K., Corrosion Under Insulation: Basics
and Resources for Understanding, JPCL, July 2009, p. 34.
2. ODonoghue, M., Datta, V.J., Andrews, A., Giardina, M.,
de Varennes, N., Gray, L.G.S., Lachat, D., and Johnson, B.,
When Undercover Agents Cant Stand the Heat:
Coatings in Action (CIA) and the Netherworld of Corrosion
Under Insulation, JPCL, February 2012, pp. 2443.
3. ODonoghue, M., Datta, V.J., Andrews, A., Giardina, M.,
31
de Varennes, N., Gray, L.G.S., Lachat, D., and Johnson, B.,
When Undercover Agents Cant Stand the Heat: The CIA
and the Netherworld of Corrosion Under Insulation, SSPC
2012. The International Protective Coatings Conference and
Exhibition. New Orleans, LA, February 2012.
4. ODonoghue, M., Datta, V.J., From Trauma to Transcendence:
Corrosion Under Insulation, NACE North Western
Conference, Calgary, Alberta, Feb. 1518, 2010.
5. NACE Standard RP0198-2004, Control of Corrosion Under
Thermal Insulation and Fireproofing Materials A Systems
Approach, NACE International, Houston, TX, 2004.
6. Chustz, K., Personal Communication. March 2012.
About the Authors
Mike ODonoghue, Ph.D., is the Director of Engineering and
Technical Services for International Paint LLC. He has more
than 30 years of experience in the protective coatings
industry.
Vijay Datta, MS, is the Director of Industrial Maintenance for
International Paint LLC. He has more than 40 years of
experience in the marine and protective coatings industry.
Adrian Andrews is the Technology Development Manager,
International Paint LLC. He has more than 30 years of
experience in the protective coatings industry.
Sean Adlem is the Sales Manager, Alberta Region Protective
Coatings, International Paint LLC. Sean has over 20 years of
experience in the protective coatings industry.
Linda G. S. Gray, MSc, is a Senior Materials Specialist for RAE
Engineering and Inspection Ltd. and has over 20 years of
experience with industrial coatings.
Tara Chahl, CET, is a Chemical Technologist for RAE Engineer-
ing and Inspection Ltd. She has three years of experience in
industrial coatings.
Nicole de Varennes is Coatings Laboratory
Manager for RAE Engineering and Inspection Ltd. She has 8
years of experience in various aspects of industrial coatings.
Bill Johnson, AScT, is the Manager of Laboratory Services
with Acuren Group Inc., in Richmond, BC. Bill has 20 years of ex-
perience in materials testing, failure analysis, scanning electron
microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. JPCL
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

The No Big Bang Theory
An Introduction To Risk-Based
Inspection Systems for Mitigating CUI in
Process Equipment and Piping
By Peter Bock, Capital Inspectors
S
teelwork at all levels of industry in the United States
is corroding despite our best efforts to stop it.1 Un-
expected atmospheric corrosion damage (including
corrosion under insulationCUI) causes tens of
billions of dollars in losses annually from unantici-
pated shutdowns of equipment; loss of production; unplanned
maintenance; unexpected cleanup costs; and, in more severe
cases, damage to adjacent equipment, injuries to operating
personnel or surrounding residents, toxic chemical releases,
environmental damage, and other long-term effects. Moreover,
this unexpected corrosion damage affects everything from the
largest and most sophisticated refineries down to small local
waterworks and sewage plants. While the damage can take
many forms, one of the most challenging is CUI, the focus of
32
Fig. 1a: (Left) Vertical process vessel after complete reblast and
recoat with thermal spray aluminum. Thermal spray is used under
insulation on large, flat, easy-to-access surfaces.
Fig. 1b: (Right) Vertical process vessel coated with thermal spray
aluminum after insulation and cladding have been replaced, and
before removal of scaffolding.
Photos courtesy of The Dow Chemical Company,
St. Charles Operations, Hahnville, LA 70057
this article. Our news media regularly report big bangsfires,
explosions, chemical spills, toxic releases and other similar
events. Many of these are caused by CUI.
CUI is as likely to be found on the boiler feed lines in a local
hospital or food processing plant as in a coal-fired electrical
generating plant or a major petrochemical facility, where hot
process equipment and pipeline are common. The larger and
more complex a manufacturing facility is, the more likely it is
to suffer from CUI and unexpected atmospheric corrosion
damage. In addition, the larger and more complex a plant is, the
more likely it is that a corrosion-related failure during operation
will have major consequences. Chemical and petrochemical
plants can be quite complex, and the damage to them (and the
surrounding area) from CUI can be quite severe because CUI is
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 2a: Sphere being abrasive blasted prior to recoating
and re-insulation. Maximum operating temperatures are low
enough that an epoxy system can be used.
usually well under way before it is detected. Unfortunately, it is
often detected after it has caused significant damage. Finding
CUI before the damage occurs is challenging. This article de-
scribes using risk-based inspection (RBI) to detect and mitigate
CUI in chemical and petrochemical process equipment and
pipeline before severe damage is done. The article also illus-
trates a successful in-house CUI-RBI program in Figs. 1a and
1b; Figs. 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d; and Fig. 3.
CUI: The Back Story
Most oil refining and petrochemical manufacturing processes
are simply advanced forms of cookingcrude oil or intermedi-
ate chemicals are cooked, heated under specific conditions or
in specific temperature and pressure environments, to produce
more desirable end products. Process vessels and piping are
usually insulated to conserve process heat and reduce the fuel
required, to reduce process temperature variations, to stabilize
stored intermediates or end products, and to protect workers
from exposure to hot equipment. Insulation is normally covered
with unpainted aluminum or stainless steel sheet metal clad-
ding to protect the fragile insulation.
It is this sheet metal cladding over insulated piping and
vessels that gives a refinery or chemical plants process units
a shiny, misleading good-to-go appearance. But dont be
fooledbeneath that shiny exterior cladding and the insulation
it covers, there usually beats a hidden heart of rusty steel. And
in many cases, no one has any idea of how rusty the steel really
is. Once corrosion eats into the steel, wall thickness is lost, and
the vessel or pipe is no longer capable of resisting the tempera-
ture and pressure it was originally rated for. Normally, there is
a corrosion allowance of extra thickness in the steel. When
the thickness of corrosion exceeds this allowance, the pipe or
33
Fig. 2b: Newly applied epoxy primer and stripe coats on the sphere.
Each step of the coating application process is closely inspected
before the next step is allowed to start.
vessel becomes unsafe. If corrosion continues, cracking, leak-
age, or catastrophic failure during operation becomes more and
more likely.
Until the 1970s, carbon steel under insulation for elevated
temperature service was often left unpainted. It was thought
that the high operating temperatures would keep the steel from
rusting, and there were no effective paints for high tempera-
tures. There were two major problems with this concept.
1. Nothing stays hot forevermost elevated temperature
equipment actually cycles hot-cold fairly frequently. Even
equipment that runs hot almost continuously is cooled down
for maintenance turnarounds and corrodes during those cool
times if not protected.
2. CUI is normally invisible. The insulation and cladding hide the
steel, and even if it was properly painted with a temperature-re-
sistant coating, there is usually no quick and inexpensive way to
check that the coating is protecting the steel. To make matters
worse, most cladding leaks, and most insulation holds water to
some degree, so the steel under insulation is exposed to a se-
vere immersion corrosion environment whenever it is operating
below the boiling point of water.
Today, there are effective coating systems available for ele-
vated temperature CUI service, but problems 1 and 2 continue.2
Corrosion under insulation tends to be invisible, and no coating
system gives 100% protection for tens of years under such
severe conditions.
The cost of removing cladding and insulation is time con-
suming and very expensive; replacing cladding and insulation
is even more expensive. Most insulated equipment receives
only periodic spot checks of tiny areas during normal operation.
Most of the steel under insulation is not seen for the expected
life of the coating system or the expected life of the uncoated
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Fig. 2c: Epoxy topcoat of the sphere. After the epoxy had
passed inspection and was fully cured to accept insulation,
the sphere was insulated and cladding was installed.
steel. When the expected life matches real life, cladding and
insulation are removed, and the steel beneath is inspected,
re-prepared, re-coated, re-insulated, and re-clad. But real life
becomes much shorter than expected life and catastrophes
can occur when unexpected moisture or chemical contami-
nants get beneath the insulation; when the steel is damaged; or
when operating conditions change, allowing increased corro-
sion under the insulation.
The currently circulating draft of API RP 583, Corrosion
Under Insulation and Fireproofing, lists nearly a dozen differ-
ent electronic methods of checking remaining wall thickness
of insulated and clad steel pipe or vessels.3 These methods
range from simple X-rays to complex real-time systems using
the latest nuclear technology. Many of these methods do not
require the insulation and cladding to be removed while doing
the electronic testing, but none has been found reliable enough
to completely eliminate removal of insulation and cladding and
visual inspection of the surface at problem areas indicated by
the electronic test.
Risk-Based Inspection Systems for CUI
Other than the expense of removing and replacing cladding and
insulation, a large part of the reason for unexpected atmo-
spheric corrosion damage from CUI or other sources is a lack
of qualified plant inspection personnel and a lack of planning.
All U.S. industries now run with extremely lean staffs of qualified
personnel. Even some major refineries and chemical plants may
have only one corrosion manager or corrosion engineer, and
a few technicians at most. Moreover, the corrosion engineer is
usually in charge of all types of corrosion mitigation, not just
atmospheric corrosion or CUI and not just mitigation through
protective coatings.
Mid-sized facilities may have only a maintenance manager
34
or maintenance engineer, for whom corrosion mitigation is only
a secondary duty. Very few successful, cost-effective facilities
have enough people, time, and money in their maintenance
budget to do thorough, complete CUI inspections regularly
without outside help. Because of their limited staffing and bud-
gets, smaller plants may actually operate on an inspection by
perforation philosophy, which can be costly and dangerous.
One effective (and cost-effective) method of CUI mitigation
that has been known and used successfully for a couple of de-
cades is a Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) Program. Unfortunately,
RBI is a complex program that requires support and coopera-
tion of the entire company, from top-level management to field-
unit operators. Initial setup of an RBI program requires extensive
in-house work, a fairly generous budget, and lots of time even
for just the insulated piping and equipment in a plant.4
Operation of a successful RBI program also requires a multi-
year commitment. For CUI-RBI, a successful program may
require a multi-decade commitment because scheduled major
maintenance programs on insulated piping and equipment can
be at 10- to 15-year intervals. Many companies shy away from
setting up meaningful RBI programs because the programs
seem too complicated and too costly, the time horizons are
beyond the companies normal planning ranges, and the com-
panies plants do not have skilled people or budgets big enough
to do the required initial baseline surveys.
Setting Up an RBI Program
Setting up an RBI program requires an initial investment of time
and thought by the companys top management, who need to
identify their companys concept of risk and to rank their com-
panys sensitivity (and aversion) to the different types and levels
of risk they may encounter in operating their plants. Fortunately,
this type of assessment needs to be done only once for the en-
tire company, or, at most, once for each type of operating unit
and possibly each country the company operates in.
The Exploration and Production, Americas, division of one
global oil and petrochemical producer has worked with the RBI
concept for more than two decades. On the one hand, the divi-
sion has distilled the basic concept and philosophy of RBI into a
simplified matrix printed on two sides of one sheet of paper. On
the other hand, the petrochemical division of the same compa-
ny has expanded it to a level where, for some process units in its
South Louisiana petrochemical plants, every valve, every flange,
and sometimes even every set of bolts and nuts have been
analyzed and given an individual criticality rating and inspec-
tion frequency requirement. We can draw on both divisions
use of the matrix to amplify our discussion of setting up an RBI
program.
Producing a Risk Assessment Evaluation requires identifi-
cation of potential events and their potential consequences,
estimating their potential severity and likelihood, and then
estimating the level of risk based on the combination of severity
and likelihood of the event happening. A Risk Assessment
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.
 35

Fig. 2d: After work is complete and scaffolding has been removed, the newly recoated, insulated
and clad sphere is seen at the left of the picture in the plants sphere tank area

Evaluation is required for every location. For the exploration
and production division of our model company, location is
defined as the smallest individual unit assessed, down to each
production platform offshore or each flow station onshore. For
a refinery or petrochemical plant, a location may be defined as
one production unit within a larger plant, or even one special-
ized portion of the plant (such as raw materials storage and
handling).
A simplified typical Risk Assessment Evaluation Chart (Table
1) examines possible consequences of an unexpected event
and their effect on the following.
Neighbors: People, buildings, and land in the area of the
affected plant
Equipment in the plant itself
Environment both in the immediate area and in general
Reputation of the owner or parent company, locally and
worldwide
Severity of consequences is rated from ZeroNo injuries,
no damage, no environmental or reputation effectto Five
Multiple fatalities, massive damage to the facility, and a huge
long-term impact on the environment and on the companys
reputation.
A Serious effect, Three on the consequences scale, would
be an event that produces many days of absence from work for
affected employees, or that results in long-term disabilities; a
release of large amounts of crude oil or of any reportable quan-
tity of a hazardous chemical; an event that triggers an environ-
mental fine; an event that incurs very high repair and mitigation

Table 1: Risk Assessment Evaluation Chart

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.


Table 2: Expected Service Life Performance of Typical CUI Systems
costs; or an event that causes partial shutdown of a facility and
generates extensive regional media coverage.
The likelihood of such an event occurring is also rated in
five steps, from Possible but unlikely, as the lowest rating to
Occurs Frequently for the most likely to occur. A simple chart
of severity versus likelihood of an event produces the risk rating
for that particular event. The higher the likelihood of an event
is and the more serious its consequences are, the more closely
and more frequently the equipment involved must be monitored
to keep the potential event from happening.
The purpose of the RBI program is to reduce all such risks to
a minimum ALAP (As Low As Practical), that is, to a level at ing environment, and to the companys bottom line as well as
which the cost and effort of further risk reduction are unafford-
able or disproportionate to the risk reduction achieved. Once
the Risk Assessment for all potential events has been com-
pleted, the actual evaluation of operating equipment begins in
order to determine the required Risk Based Inspection process
for assuring that operation of the equipment will not produce
negative events beyond the ALAP level.
The second half of an initial RBI assessment involves person-
nel actually operating and maintaining the equipment being rat-
ed. These are the people who actually live with the equipment
day-in and day-out; they are most qualified to identify portions
of the unit or piece of equipment most likely to fail, and whose
failure is most likely to cause damage. They also are most likely
to know what coincidental or collateral damage one failure
might cause to other parts of the plant. This process allows a
whole series of possible events to be evaluated from each
potential failure.
Plant maintenance records and equipment design blueprints
are analyzed to determine the portions or pieces of equipment
most likely to corrode and cause an event. Then, potential
events are rated for their effect on plant operation and pro-
duction, and the same potential events are rated against the
companys Risk Assessment charts.
This initial survey can be done by outside consultants, but,
ultimately, it is the plant operating personnel who are familiar
enough with plant components to know which are the most like-
36
ly to fail, and local plant management who
are best able to determine what and how
severe damage such a failure will cause.
Commitment to an RBI Program
The engineer or manager chosen to design
and implement a CUI-RBI program faces
a daunting task. First, he or she must be
assured of buy-in from upper manage-
ment and from the field people who will
be doing the site evaluation. After every-
one understands and agrees that an RBI
program is a multi-year, continuing effort,
not a one-time inspection, there comes the question of return
on investment (ROI). On the one hand, the initial survey and risk
assessment are expensive and time-consuming. On the other
hand, preventing one Moderate event from the Risk Evaluation
chart can mean a savings of $1,000,000; preventing a Major
event can save ten times as much. In comparison, the cost of
the initial plant RBI survey may seem reasonable.
For a refinery or oil production facilities, and for many pet-
rochemical plants, the in-plant riskssuch as a vapor cloud
explosion, petroleum jet fire, petroleum pool fire, or major toxics
releasecan all do grievous harm to the plant, to the surround-
to its reputation. The in-plant survey needs to identify specific
high-risk areas or pieces of equipment whose failure might raise
the severity of consequences on the Equipment column of the
risk chart. Of course, such equipment should already be closely
monitored as part of the plant maintenance program, but iden-
tifying (or re-identifying) key high-risk items helps the RBI initial
survey become a defined risk-mitigation process.
Existing plant data on performance of unit vessels, piping,
operating equipment, controls, and even electrical and elec-
tronic sub-systems can be used to develop an RBI continuing
inspection schedule and calculate its expected cost in terms
Fig. 3: Five-year-old liquid-applied elevated temperature
coating exposed for RBI inspection. Liquid-applied coating is
used under insulation on complex or hard-to-reach surfaces
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

of dollars per square foot or dollars per linear foot of pipe per
year of the RBI program. Remaining service life of an older unit,
expected upgrades or replacement, and the part one unit plays
in the overall operation of the plant all need to be evaluated
against the risk evaluation for that particular unit.
Once data is collected, the proposed RBI program needs to
be prioritized, based on highest possible event consequences,
age and replacement cost of equipment, turnaround schedules,
and the ability to incorporate the RBI program into existing in-
spection procedures (if any exist). Because there is not enough
budget for 100% frequent inspection of all insulated areas, a
priority ranking program is set up, with the riskiest vessels,
piping, and equipment receiving the most frequent and most
thorough spot inspections, and lower-risk equipment being
inspected less often, or with less of the insulation and cladding
actually removed as part of the scheduled inspection. Low-
est-risk or no-risk equipment may receive only the minimum
required electronic wall thickness tests annually. Some critical
refinery areas may require 100% removal of cladding and insu-
lation and 100% visual inspection.
A key factor in the frequency of visual inspections is the
equipment owners confidence in the CUI coating systems used
on equipment included in the CUI RBI program. Where quality
surface preparation, a suitable proven coating system, good
application, and thorough inspection have been done on equip-
ment under insulation, the number of inspection spots may
be reduced to areas of known breakdown, and the inspection
intervals may be extended. Table 2 shows a major global pet-
rochemical companys confidence level for length of service
life of coatings under insulation, where operating temperatures
never exceed the maximum service temperature of the applied
coating system.5
Continuing the RBI Program
After the base plant (or unit) RBI survey has been done, and
the risks and hazards have been agreed upon, quantified, and
ranked by plant personnel, then the actual annual (or otherwise
recurrent) field surveys can be done by an outside survey firm
that has experienced, qualified inspectors, and follows the base
survey. Many existing RBI programs actually combine electronic
non-destructive testing (NDT) with insulation and cladding re-
moval and visual inspection of selected small areas. Both parts
of the survey may be done by the same firm, or NDT can be
done by a specialist, and the results can be verified by a paint
inspection company.
The findings of these recurrent surveys are summarized
in electronic format, incorporating electronic testing results,
digital photographs, and the field contract inspectors eyeball
on the steel evaluations. The plants corrosion engineer or
maintenance manager now can examine the corrosion state of
his facility on a computer monitor in his or her office, at his or
her convenience. Management personnel can review the survey
37
results, match them against expected results based on the
initial RBI survey, and decide on an appropriate course of action.
In simplified form, the recurrent RBI survey can have four
possible results for a particular unit or piece of equipment.
Less corrosion is found than was expected. This result is
noted in the survey. If the result is found to repeat in the next
scheduled survey of this unit, the unit or piece of equipment
may be re-evaluated for lower risk or less frequent inspection.
Some owners also use such a finding to re-evaluate related
equipment, working on the sound theory that if one unit or
piece of equipment is rusting less than expected, something
else related to the equipment may be acting as an anode and
rusting more than expected.
Corrosion is as expected. The survey is submitted and repeat-
ed as scheduled.
A small increase in corrosion is noted over expectation.
Additional portions of the unit are inspected at the same time
to confirm the increase in corrosion. For CUI work, inspecting
additional portions means removing additional small areas of
cladding and insulation. The unit or area is marked, and the next
scheduled re-inspection will determine whether unscheduled
corrosion-preventive maintenance may be necessary.
A large or unexpected increase in corrosion is noted. Addition-
al portions of the unit are inspected at the same time to confirm
the increase in corrosion, and plant personnel are brought in to
try to determine a cause. Budget and scheduling are rearranged
to give priority to corrosion-preventive maintenance on this
unit or piece of equipment. The recurrent survey schedule is
rearranged to closely monitor this problem until corrosion-pre-
ventive maintenance is done, and then afterward to determine
whether the maintenance resolved the problem.
RBI programs for plants with large amounts of insulated
piping and equipment require additional input during the initial
set-up of the program to assure that the spots selected for
recurrent survey are actually representative of the worst case
areas of each unit or piece of equipment. The first few recurrent
surveys done by a contract inspection or survey firm may actu-
ally include additional, redundant spot inspection points, which
can be phased out later if survey results are as expected. Where
electronic testing or thermal imaging produces reliable results
and matches destructive spot testing over several recurrent
survey cycles, the destructive testing spots may be reduced,
thereby reducing the overall survey costs without affecting
reliability.
Figures 1-3 that accompany this article show an in-house
RBI program in action at a petrochemical plant in South Louisi-
ana. The facility is an older plant, but equipment is meticulously
maintained, and a very thorough RBI program is in place. Sec-
tions of insulated piping, vessels, and equipment are inspected
annually on a rotating basis, with a typical section being re-in-
spected every three years on average. The plant uses a combi-
nation of organic coatings and thermal spray aluminum for CUI
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

work; annual survey results tend to confirm the plants RBI base
surveys and the service life expectations for the systems used.
Confidence is high that the CUI-RBI program is working as it
should.
A Houston-area industrial gas facility, which produces vari-
ous gases by cryogenically refrigerating air and then separating
its components, has an entirely different approach to RBI for the
companys piping for transfer, storage, and loading. The facility
doesnt do any RBI. Analysis of maintenance and operating
records on these low-temperature piping systems in the plant
has shown that failures are always due to cracking of piping in
cyclic service from cryogenic to ambient temperatures. A failed
pipe is quickly discovered through unexpected pressure loss;
the insulation and cladding over the pipe act as an effective
containment over the ruptured pipe; and the only loss is of the
product in the pipe, which, as a gas component of air, is inher-
ently non-polluting.
The plant has been designed to allow effective isolation of
failed pipe run sections, so when such a failure occurs, the af-
fected pipe run is shut in, insulation and cladding are removed,
and the failed pipe section is replaced. Loss of product and loss
of productivity are minimal. The plant runs several parallel air
separation trains, so the downtime required to replace a frac-
tured length of pipe in the transfer, storage, and loading piping
produces only a small reduction in plant output and does not
require other shutdowns. Corporate management has deter-
mined that for these portions of the plant, this policy of neglect
presents low enough risk and is more cost effective than an
intense RBI program.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, a great deal of corrosion-mitigation plant main-
tenance, both for CUI and for atmospheric corrosion damage,
is done reactively, rather than proactively. There is an Oh Sh**
moment that comes in almost every unscheduled CUI inspec-
tion. Thats when the plant corrosion engineer or maintenance
manager looks at the large area of newly exposed corroding
steel where insulation and cladding were removed after serious
corrosion was seen in a smaller exposed area, and the engineer
says Oh Sh**. Fixing this is going to take my entire maintenance
budget for the year.
For these plants, CUI repair work is scheduled and done
only after a serious problem is unexpectedly found. This work
often involves unscheduled shutdowns; loss of production;
manufacturing bottlenecks or backlogs; and, occasionally, even
fires, explosions, or toxic product releases. This maintenance
process is unnecessarily costly and can be easily improved.
Improvement requires only a small increase in budgets and no
long-term increase in plant personnel, using RBI with an initial
survey by plant personnel and recurrent inspections by outside
contract inspectors or surveyors.
Although commitment to a CUI-RBI program requires a
38
substantial initial investment of time and effort, and a multi-year
continuing commitment, the relative security, peace of mind,
and confidence in the plant corrosion state offer a positive re-
turn on investment even before factoring in the cost savings of
not having an unexpected event that might shut down the plant,
pollute the neighborhood, and irreparably injure the companys
reputation.
References
1. George F. Hays, P. E., Now is the Time, White Paper, World
Corrosion Organization, Houston, TX, corrosion.org, 2007.
2. Control of Corrosion Under Thermal Insulation and
Fireproofing Materials, a Systems Approach, NACE SP
0198- 2010, NACE International, Houston, TX, nace.org, 2010.
3. Corrosion Under insulation and Fireproofing, Currently
circulating draft of API RP583, First Edition, First Ballot,
American Petroleum Institute, Washington, DC, api.org, 2012.
4. Keith E. McKinney, Fred J. M. Busch, Andre Blaauw, Andrea M.
Etheridge, Development of Risk Assessment and
Inspection Strategies For External Corrosion Management,
Paper No. 05557, NACE Corrosion 2005, NACE International,
Houston, TX, nace.org, 2005.
5. William C. McRae and Nalton Thompson, CUI Project
Development, Bring on the Heat 2013, NACE International,
Houston, TX, nace.org, 2013.
Peter Bock is Inspection Sales Manager for Capital Inspectors,
The Woodlands, TX. He is an Air Force veteran and has degrees
from Tulane and the University of Northern Colorado. Bock has
36 years of experience with sales, management, and techni-
cal service in oilfield and petrochemical
heavy-duty coatings in the U.S., Canada,
Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, and Taiwan.
He has experience with on- and offshore
production, drilling and workover rigs, ship-
yard work, natural gas and LNG, pipelines,
terminals, refineries, and chemical plants.
He is a specialist in elevated temperature
systems and CUI mitigation.
The author gives special thanks for the photographs to Mr.
Lawrence Joe Bordelon, Senior Coatings & Linings Technol-
ogist, Site SME/Technical Support/Paint Operations, Global
Paint/ Linings TRN Member, The Dow Chemical Company, St.
Charles Operations. JPCL
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

Corrosion under Insulation:
Basics and Resources
for Understanding
O
ver the past 25 years or so, problems with cor-
rosion under thermal insulation (CUI) have been
recognized by the chemical and petrochemical
industries, leading to the need for effective
corrosion protection for piping, vessels, and
equipment encased in thermal insulation. The first part of this
article briefly reviews how the environment for CUI is created.
The review also explains how piping, vessels, and equipment are
typically insulated and notes the historical circumstances that
contributed to CUI. The second part of the article describes
two recently published consensus documents about CUI and
reports on three recent studies on CUI.
The article is not intended to be a comprehensive discussion
of CUI. Previous articles have addressed in varying detail many
issues associated with CUI, including approaches to preventing
it, performance of various coatings under insulation, and when
coatings are needed under insulation (see examples, Referenc-
es 18). An upcoming article will address the issue of deciding
when to coat before insulating, taking into account more than
the operating conditions.
39
By Brian Goldie and Karen Kapsanis, JPCL
Creating the Corrosive Environment under Insulation
Corrosion of steel occurs when steel is in direct contact with
water and oxygen. In most atmospheric services, corrosion
occurs at such a rate that application of a protective barrier in
the form of a coating system significantly extends the life of
exposed piping, vessels, and equipment. The environment cre-
ated when a steel surface is encased under thermal insulation
is often more conducive to corrosion, resulting in significantly
higher corrosion rates, than an analogous uninsulated surface.
Corrosion under insulation is of particular concern because
many insulating materials trap and hold moisture against the
steel so that insulated surfaces are subject to a wetted envi-
ronment for greater lengths of time than uninsulated surfaces,
which more readily dry out. Many surfaces are insulated to
retain heat, so the time in the wetted environment is also at an
elevated temperature, resulting in an increased corrosion rate.
Because the progressive corrosion of insulated surfaces is not
readily observed, and therefore not allowing for regular mainte-
nance when corrosion is minor, CUI often proceeds unnoticed
until consequences are severe.
The Insulation System
Insulation is typically applied to piping, vessels, and equipment
in the petrochemical industry to maintain process tempera-
tures. (In some facilities, insulation is also used to protect
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

personnel from hot surfaces, but this topic is beyond the scope
of this article.) Thermal insulation materials are generally porous
materials (capable of absorbing moisture), including mineral
wool, foam glass, aerogels, and polymeric foams. Insulation
is clad or jacketed to prevent physical damage. Insulating and
cladding materials are selected based on performance versus
cost. The insulation system (insulation and cladding) must per-
form so that its cost at an effective thickness is more than off-
set by the savings resulting from maintaining process tempera-
tures. The economics do not allow for systems with insulating
materials that are highly impermeable to moisture ingress and
with cladding that is moisture tight. Additionally, damage to the
external cladding on the insulation can be caused at installation,
over time as personnel walk on the insulation or drop heavy
objects, or through deterioration with time. Therefore, most
thermal insulation systems are subject to moisture ingress, and
CUI is a possibility.
Common external sources of moisture are humidity, fog,
rain, testing of fire safety deluge systems, and washing down of
equipment and facilities. Salt and chemical contamination from
industrial pollution and coastal proximity can also be present in
the water, further increasing its corrosivity to carbon and stain-
less steels.
A Historical Note on CUI
Up until the 1970s, CUI was not generally a problem. Economics
at that time were such that piping, vessels, and equipment were
not insulated unless the operating temperature was above 150
C (302 F). Insulated steel surfaces that were 150 C or higher
much of the time remained dry, so significant amounts of corro-
sion did not occur.
The oil shortage of the 1970s changed industrial insulation
practices. Escalating energy prices changed the economics
such that efforts to retain heat in processes operating be-
low 150 C were now beneficial. At these lower temperatures,
insulated surfaces were wetted more often and subject to
corrosion. Coating systems that had been used successfully on
uninsulated surfaces were subsequently used under insulation.
These systems performed poorly in the hot, wetted environ-
ment created under thermal insulation below 150 C; problems
with CUI started to emerge; and their significance increased.
The fact that a hot aqueous environment was present under
the insulation (due to water penetration, as described above)
was not originally appreciated. The conventional atmospher-
ic coating systems of the day could not protect adequately
against corrosion in what are essentially immersion conditions.
Corrosion under insulation continued unobserved until the steel
was so seriously damaged that it became evident by leaks or
structural failure.
These problems led to the use of immersion-grade coating
systems capable of providing effective corrosion protection in
a hot, wetted environment and resisting maximum operating
40
temperatures up to approximately 220 C (425 F). Mitigating CUI
became the subject of a NACE International guideline, pub-
lished over a decade ago and updated in 2004 (Recommended
Practice RP0198, The Control of Corrosion Under Thermal
Insulation and Fireproofing Materials - A Systems Approach).
The Problem Persists
Despite advances in understanding the corrosive nature of the
environment associated with an insulated structure and the
kinds of coatings that can withstand the exposure, the problem
persists, as evidenced by the issuance in 2007 of an ASTM
guide to laboratory tests for CUI; by the publication of a 176-
page guidance document on CUI from the European Federation
of Corrosion (EFC); and by some of the types of research into
protection against CUI.
ASTM Issues CUI Lab Testing Guide
From ASTM Subcommittee G01.11 on Electrochemical Mea-
surements in Corrosion Testing came the 2007 consensus
document, ASTM G189, Standard Guide for Laboratory Simula-
tion of Corrosion under Insulation. As noted in the Scope, the
Guide addresses laboratory simulation of general and localized
CUI. It calls for test specimens to be insulated sections cut from
pipe and exposed to a corrosive environment that includes
elevated temperature. Described in the standard are a testing
apparatus for CUI exposure, specimen preparation, procedures
for simulating temperatures, as well as wet and dry conditions
of a CUI environment. While the guide is intended mainly to help
establish acceptable approaches to simulating CUI on carbon
steel or low alloy steel for pipe, the Scope states that the test
procedures might be useful for assessing other metals, an-
ti-corrosion materials on pipeline, and other aspects of CUI, as
long as the samples are suitable for the test apparatus.
EFC Guideline
The EFC Working Parties WP13 and WP15 issued Corrosion
under Insulation (CUI) Guidelines: (EFC 55) in March 2008. Edit-
ed by Stefan Winnik of ExxonMobil Chemical and published by
Woodhead Publishing, the volume represents the work not only
of the working parties but also of major European oil refining,
petrochemical, and offshore companies that collaborated with
WP13 and WP15.
The volume covers everything from economics to materials,
practices, inspection, testing, and more. Among the chapters
are the following.
Economic consideration
Ownership and responsibility
The risk-based inspection (RBI) methodology for CUI
Inspection activities/strategy
NDE/NDT screening techniques for CUI
Recommended best practice to mitigate CUI
A wealth of appendices to the document amplify topics such
2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.
 41

as cost analysis, quality assurance, types of insulation, suitable

coatings, including thermal spray, application methods, clad-
Futher Information
For information about ASTM G189, visit www.astm.org. For
ding, protection guards, and inspection techniques.
information about the EFC Guide, visit www.efcweb.org. For in-
Industry Research
formation about the NACE RP0198 and the three NACE papers
Several industry research studies from petrochemical, pipeline,
and discussed above, visit www.nace.org.
and other interested companies were presented at NACE Interna-
tionals Corrosion 2008 Conference and Expo (New Orleans, LA).
Researchers from ExxonMobil and Honeywell Process
References
1. John Montle, Thomas Sikes, William Ashbaugh, John F.
Solutions conducted a laboratory investigation of CUI on steel
Delahunt, and Debbie C. Maatsch, Using Inorganic Zinc
in three conditions: uncoated, coated with thermal sprayed
Primers Under Insulation, Problem Solving Forum, JPCL,
aluminium (TSA), and coated with TSA but with defects that
January 1985, pp. 1011.
exposed the steel. Two types of insulation were also tested
2. Brian Goldie, Tips on Using Coatings under Thermal
over the coated and uncoated steel: mineral wool and calcium
Insulation: A UK Viewpoint JPCL, July 1995, pp. 8589.
silicates. Researchers followed ASTM G189 to approximate
3. Mike Mitchell and Chris Birkert, Corrosion Protection Under
field conditions of cycling temperatures and alternating wet and
Thermal Insulation: Current Studies and Potential Solutions,
dry conditions. Of the three types of steel samples, specimens
Protective Coatings Europe, July 1997, pp. 1215, 6162.
protected with TSA (with no coating defects) showed the lowest
4. Bruce Rutherford, Preventing Corrosion under Insulation in
corrosion rates under each type of insulation tested. The test
Chemical Manufacturing Facilities, JPCL, July 1998,
methods, specimens, procedures, and results are detailed in
pp. 4049.
Evaluation of Steel and TSA Coating in a Corrosion under Insu-
5. Martyn Wilmott, John Highams, Richard Ross, and Adam
lation (CUI) Environment, by Russell D. Kane, Monica Chauviere,
Kopystinski, Coating and Thermal Insulation of Subsea or
and Keith Chustz, and published in the NACE Corrosion 2008
Buried Pipelines, Protective Coatings Europe, April 2000,
proceedings (Paper No. 08036).
pp. 5360.
A study conducted by Shaw Pipe Protection Limited looked
6. Brian J. Fitzgerald and Dr. Stefan Winnik, A Strategy for
at an epoxy coating for its suitability for use under insulating
Preventing Corrosion Under Insulation on Pipeline in the
foam with resistance to high heat, at or above 150 C. The struc-
Petrochemical Industry, JPCL/PCE, April 2005, pp. 5257.
ture studied was buried pipeline. The high service temperature
7. M. Halliday, New Generation Solutions for an Age-Old
is needed for moving bitumen extracted via thermal recovery
ProblemPreventing Corrosion under Insulation, JPCL,
from the oil sands in Alberta, Canada. M. Batallas and P. Singh
February 2007, pp. 2436.
reported on the methods they used to test the epoxy and their
8. Peter P. Bock and Michael F. Melampy, Field Maintenance
results in Evaluation of Anticorrosion Coatings for High-Tem-
of Coating Systems under Insulation, JPCL, April 2009,
perature Service, Paper No. 08039 NACE Corrosion 2008
pp. 4448.
proceedings.
Because CUI can be hidden for a long time beneath cladding
Brian Goldie, JPCLs Technical Editor, worked in the oil industry
and insulation, it often is not recognized until damage to a pipe
for many years. Karen Kapsanis is the Editor of JPCL.
or vessel is dramatic. Systematic inspection of insulated equip-
ment is an approach to reducing damage from CUI by catching
it sooner, before the damage is dramatic, extensive, and expen-
sive. Two approaches to inspecting equipment and structures
for CUI were the subject of a study that two ConocoPhillips
refineries undertook. One approach involved direct initial and
then thorough inspection and maintenance as needed of insu-
lated equipment. The initial inspection helped isolate equipment
that needed refurbishment. The second approach omitted a
direct initial inspection and instead used a software program to
identify insulated equipment for inspection and maintenance
as needed to prevent or mitigate CUI. Authors Rob Scanlan,
Ricardo Valbuena, Ian Harrison, and Rafael Rengifo report on
the differences in the effectiveness of the methods in identify-
ing and remedying or preventing CUI (A Refinery Approach to
Address Corrosion under Insulation and External Corrosion,
NACE Corrosion 2008 Paper No. 08558.

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.

 47

Photo courtesy of Thermion

Application of Thermal Spray Coating

T
his webinar explains the proper procedure for Presented by John Kern,
applying metallic thermal spray coatings (TSCs) of
aluminum, zinc and their alloys and composites to
technical auditor, SSPC.
protect steel from corrosion. Standards, required
equipment, application procedures, and in-process
quality control checkpoints are discussed. Participants will be
eligible to receive credit from SSPC.

John Kern is a technical auditor for SSPC. He has over 40 years

of experience in the industrial coatings industry and over 30
years of experience in the corrosion industry. He has experi- View Webinar
ence as a Coatings Chemist Tech for New Jersey Department
of Transportation, a Corrosion Chemist for the U.S. Navy, and
a Coatings Program Engineer for the U.S. Coast Guard. He is a
NACE CIP Level 3 #135, an instructor for multiple training cours-
es for SSPC and a prior vice chair for the National Ship Research
Program. He is the president, consultant and chief engineer for
Virginia Coatings Inspections and a Consultant at ADA Technol-
ogies.

2005-2015 Technology Publishing Co.