Abstract
The experiments were performed at atmospheric pressure in glass cells filled with a sour water (oil wells water) and H2S gases (H2S concentrations in the gas inlet: 0.01 M to 10.0M). Rectangular specimens made from steel pipeline exposed to H2S gases for a test period ranging from one hour to twenty-four hours at temperature ranges, from 30 degrees C to 90 degrees C with flow rates ranging from 0.0 to 4.0 m/s peripheral speed. The potentiodynamic polarization technique is applied. The effect of the polarization technique parameters on detecting the oil pipelines corrosion carried out at various test conditions. A microstructure examination proved that Mackinawite scale farms on the steel surface as a product of H2S corrosion. The corrosion rate clearly increases with velocity and the effect much pronounced for shorter exposure times. Very weak temperature dependence observed even for the shorter-term exposure that disappears for the longer exposure times. The potential values reduced with electrodes area increment at different exposure periods. The smaller tipped probe has more influence than the larger-tipped probe. The electrodes distance decreases its corrosion current increment due to its nearest position effect that leads to the strong exposure.