A Simple Superposition Formulation to Predict the Underwater Electric Potential Signature of Naval Vessels

Abstract

The underwater electric potential (UEP) signature is an electric signal, which can be exploited by naval mines to be utilized as a possible trigger indicator and may cause severe damage to the vessel and the onboard crew. Hence, knowing the UEP signature as exactly as possible can help to evaluate a possible risk of the vessel being detected by naval mines or if the UEP signature is within a noncritical region. As the UEP signature differs for changes of the corrosion protection system, the UEP signature is usually unknown for new conditions. In this work, we present a simple mathematical formulation to predict the UEP signature based on the mere use of a single reference UEP signature, and the corresponding currents, which are excited by the impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP) system. With this methodology, deviations below 10% between the maximum of the simulated UEP signature and the predicted UEP signature can be achieved, even in the presence of the nonlinear corrosion process. Furthermore, a corrosion protective coating of the propellers can significantly reduce the influence of the nonlinear corrosion process on the total UEP signature to improve the prediction accuracy of the superposition formulation as presented in this work.

An analytical four-layer horizontal electric current dipole model for analysing underwater electric potential in shallow seawater

“…The measurement of underwater electrical potential (UEP) is widely used in civil and military marine applications for different purposes. For example, it is used for monitoring a ship hull corrosion and its protection against corrosion 10 – 15 , in predicting UEP signatures to evaluate a possible risk of the vessel beaning detected by naval mines 16 , in geophysical surveys to obtain the information on seabed structure 17 , 18 , in the exploration of oil and gas deposits located in the seafloor 19 , 20 in the tasks of ships tracking 21 and object localization below the waterline 22 , or in ships classification 23 .…”

Cathodic Protection of A Container Ship Using A Detailed BEM Model

“…2020, 8, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 14 solved by discretizing only the under protection metallic surface. In the last few decades, BEM has been extensively used to solve sacrificial CP and ICCP problems mainly in ships [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], offshore and subsea structures [19,20], buried pipelines, underground structures, and steel-reinforced concrete [21], as well as optimization problems regarding the optimum placement of the anodes [8]. However, despite its advantages, the application of conventional BEM to large-scale problems suffers from very time-consuming computations and high demands for computer memory capacity.…”

“…The above-described CP problem can be solved efficiently with BEM. The advantage of the reduction of problem's dimensionality by one makes BEM an ideal tool for dealing with problems of infinite or semi-infinite domains [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…A well-established and powerful numerical tool for analyzing cathodic protection problems is the boundary element method (BEM) [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. One remarkable advantage it offers is the reduction of the dimensionality of the problem by one.…”

“…Thus, although the electrochemical process occurs at the metallic surface and the surrounding electrolyte volume, cathodic protection (CP) problems can be solved by discretizing only the under protection metallic surface. In the last few decades, BEM has been extensively used to solve sacrificial CP and ICCP problems mainly in ships [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], offshore and subsea structures [19,20], buried pipelines, underground structures, and steel-reinforced concrete [21], as well as optimization problems regarding the optimum placement of the anodes [8].…”