Abstract

This paper presents a review of the current standards and guidelines on corrosion protection of offshore wind foundations. It also gives a review of the experiences reported within the industry over the last decade, during which time offshore wind has gone from a marginal industry to a major governmentally supported renewable energy source within Northern Europe in particular. Today many reported experiences concerning both the external and internal corrosion protection systems of offshore wind foundation structures have highlighted the need for updated and further documentation within the standards and guidelines. The concerns include the special challenges with external cathodic protection (CP) of tall steel structures in shallow waters under often extreme tidal loads as well as possible interactions between the sulfide rich mud zone and either freely corroding steel or steel under CP in the stagnant water inside the foundation. Other concerns are related to controlling the maintenance costs of the structures that in contrast to most oil/gas offshore structures are unmanned. In summary this paper provides a GAP analysis between the experiences reported versus the recommendations given by the current guidelines and standards. The analysis is related to the work in NACE TG 476 and aims at sharing the recent European experiences within the industry. The need for further material testing, review of the CP design basis as well as corrosion monitoring options is discussed.

This content is only available via PDF.
You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.