Corrosion of metallic structures is often caused by stray currents. The origin and impact of these stray currents is most of the time hard to predict unless you use the unique CatPro simulation software.

The CatPro software has been designed for the optimization of cathodic protection systems of large networks of buried pipelines taking into account following effects:

• Cathodic, anodic, combined and induced interferences
• DC stray current interference from trains, trams, Rapid Transit Systems and & HVDC interference from power transmission lines
• Interferences from 3rd party CP-systems or neighboring pipeline systems

By applying the CatPro software tool, the CP engineer can easily calculate different pipeline CP set-ups under various conditions (soil resistivity, coating quality, pipeline dimensions, rectifier output, …) in order to custom-fit the system to his protection requirements. Consequently, the number of on-site interventions can be reduced significantly.

Click here to download the CatPro datasheet.

To download detailed documentation about CatPro, including some examples, please click here.

View a demo of a numerical simulation within CatPro in Document Center > Demo’s.

• Conceptual design of new CP systems
• Evaluation and optimization of existing CP systems
• Evaluation of on-site measurements
• Develop rules of good practice
• Training of personnel

   

   

CatPro's main features are:

• Full 3D model for pipe structu¬res, using “pipe elements” to redu¬ce computation time
• Multiple pipeline networks
• Multiple CP-systems (impressed current, poten¬tial or sacrificial)
• Multiple DC-traction systems
• Database with standard pipeline sizes
• Advanced model for the coating quality (taking into account the local soil resistivity)
• Any pipe section can be used in combination with any coating quality
• Modeling of electrical networks using current and voltage supplies, (uni-directional) current drains, resistive bonds, insulation joints, …
• Stray current influences from 3rd party systems
• Stray current influences from DC-traction systems such as trams, above/underground trains and Rapid Transit Systems
• Stray current influences from HVDC power transmission lines
• Visualization of on/off pipe-to-soil potentials, pipeline attenuation, and soil potential distributions
• Visualization of radial current densities and axial currents along the pipes
• Multi-layer analysis
• Import from file of existing coordinate databases
• Import from file of soil resistivity along the developed length of a pipeline
• Import from file of experimental pipe-to-soil potentials for comparison with calculations
• Metric (km’s) and English (miles) system

Operating system: Windows2000, WindowsXP

Internal memory: minimum 512MB RAM recommended

Processor: minimum 1GHz recommended

Hard disk space required: 6MB

The input parameters for CatPro:

• Position of pipelines (including 3rd party), anodes, tracks
• Position and specification of rectifiers, resistive bonds, insulating joints, current drains, power stations, trains, …
• Coating quality of pipelines
• Soil resistivities

CatPro's calculated output:

• On/off pipe-to-soil potentials
• Radial current density
• Axial current
• Voltage attenuation
• Soil potential
• Protected and non-protected pipeline sections
• Additional output of all data in Excel format

To view a larger image of the pictures, simply click on the picture.

CatPro user interface

Overview of the complete CP-configuration including pipelines (full brown lines), ground beds (pink triangles), railway tracks (dotted black lines), traction sub-stations (black squares), trains (blue diamonds), current drains (green circles) and resistive bonds (grey circles)

Calculated “Off” and “On” pipe-to-soil potentials along the developed length of the main pipeline. The dashed red line represents the minimum required protection level (-0.85 V versus copper sulphate reference electrode)

Color plot representing the non-protected pipeline areas defined by an “Off” pipe-to-soil potential above –0.85 V (versus copper sulphate reference electrode)

Calculated soil potential (ground level) in the region near the pipeline configuration.

Elsyca Catpro has already proven its benefits several times:

“Elsyca Catpro is the easiest-to-use modelling and simulation software for the design and maintenance of cathodic protection systems of burried pipelines. Moreover, the prompt and professional support of Elsyca completes this solution.”

(Mr. Hyun-Goo Lee, KERI - South Korea)

“Elsyca CatPro has been a vital tool for us in maintaining the competitive power of our corrosion control group. It saves us huge efforts by supplying immediate modelling capability which allows us to validate our CP system maintenance plan without expensive trial-and-error. Elsyca CatPro is also extremely helpful in understanding complex interference situations which cannot be simulated by other methods.

We have recommended Elsyca CatPro to several other companies, sharing the same interest in efficiently managing their CP systems.”

(Dr. Kim YoungGeun, Corrosion Control Team/PM, Korea Gas Corporation)

1. Is CATPRO a 2D or a 3D software?CATPRO is a real 3D software since the pipes, anodes and tracks can have any direction. However, there is one limitation since so-called "pipe elements" are used to reduce the computation time. This means that around the surface of the pipe we assume a uniform distribution so we "replace" the pipe (real 3D surface) with a pipe element. As a result, the current density, PSP, ... only changes along the developed length of the pipe and not around the surface. To calculate a pipeline section locally, real 3D calculations can be done. For real 3D CP applications, a dedicated software tool, Elsyca CPMaster, is available.

2. Does CATPRO use equivalent electrical networks to solve the problem?No. CATPRO does not solve an equivalent resistive network. It actually solves Laplace’s equation in the entire half-space (e.g. the entire soil with the air being the insulator) using the Boundary Element Technique. Of course, the pipes, anodes and tracks will behave as an equivalent resistance with the resistance determined by the section, thickness, coating quality and axial resistivity of the pipe. All these parameters can be changed for any section of the pipe, anode or track.

3. Is it possible to switch connections (rectifiers, bonds, drains, ...) ON/OFF?Yes! CATPRO’s output such as: PSP, current densities, axial currents, attenuations, ... will be calculated solving Laplace’s equation. All these connections between points on pipes, anodes and tracks can easily be switched ON/OFF to see what happens in all operating conditions. For CATPRO it doesn’t matter whether there is only 1 pipelines or a whole network of pipelines! For any configuration the fundamental Laplace equation is solved.

4. If you have a scale AutoCAD DXF file of piping and other networks, can it be imported into CATPRO?In order to implement piping and other networks, CATPRO needs a list of coordinates XYZ for the points of the pipe. Currently, these data have to be put on a simple *txt file with tabs that separate the coordinates. For each "branch" (being a pipe, groundbed, railway track, ...) a separate *.txt file has to be made. Normally it should be possible to generate an Excel or *.txt file directly from AutoCAD that does have the XYZ format separated with tabs.

5. Can the output data (results) be saved to data files which may be imported into other software?All relevant results such as PSP, current density, attenuation, soil potential near pipe and axial current are written to an Excel file, for each separate branch. In addition, CATPRO itself has numerous visualization options like drawing a branch with all connections made to it and the current flowing through those connections. This will give a very good idea of where the current goes to!

6. Does CATPRO handle uni- and bi-directional bonds?No problem! In CATPRO it is possible to connect 2 or more pipes using a pure resistor. The uni-directional bond like a current drain is often placed at crossings of a pipe with neighbouring tracks. This uni-directional bond only allows current in one direction since it is modeled as a pure diode in series with a resistor (that can have any value).

7. Can CATPRO be used to model pipes embedded in concrete casings?No. CATPRO has been designed to deal with PIPELINES. Due to the fact that only pipes are used it is possible to model large networks of pipelines (hundreds of KM’s) in a relatively short computation time. CATPRO is particularly usefull to deal with the CP of cross-country pipelines taking into account any kind of interference (cathodic, anodic, combined, induced, DC and HVDC). Nevertheless, our ELSY2D software can handle such cases. This software package can deal with any kind of geometry but is limited to "smaller" problems (e.g. storage tanks, pipes embedded in concrete casings, ...). A 2D and AX symmetrical version of ELSY2D is available.