Current distribution in cathodic protection systems

Although cathodic protection is now accepted as a standard engineering technique it is still very much an empirical exercise to design an installation. This is, surprisingly enough, due to an apparent lack of knowledge of performances of electrolytic cells in general. Admittedly the typical cathodic protection installation is complicated by a large number of variables but, even so, design work can generally only be achieved within an accuracy of about 20%. One of the great problems in electrolytic cells is a knowledge of the distribution pattern of the cell currents. The following study is part of a wider research investigation into such problems, and it is believed that the tendency of the conclusions will be of interest to all designers involved in electrolytic cell applications.