Abstract
In the mid-1980's, the prestressed concrete cylinder pipe (PCCP) industry addressed pipe performance and reliability issues that arose in the 1970's by adopting more stringent quality standards for high strength PCCP prestressing wire. Many hundreds of miles of prestressed pipe installed in the late 1960's and 1970's have performed very well, but some have failed due to corrosion induced failure of the prestressing wire. Cathodic protection (CP) has been installed on a number of pre-1980 PCCP pipelines, but is it always safe to do so following conventional CP protection guidelines? Should the protection criteria required to conservatively and safely protect prestress wire be selected on the basis of the age and condition of the pipeline, the physical and mechanical properties of the wire, and the environmental conditions surrounding the pipeline? What environments and wire properties favor the use of sacrificial anodes rather than impressed current systems?
