Application status and prospect of intelligent acquisition system of cathodic protection potential

The development of oil and gas pipelines is booming in China. This is not only a great opportunity for pipeline industry, but also a challenge to improve the operation level of pipeline. The intelligent acquisition system of cathodic protection potential is an efficient tool to monitor and inspect the cathodic protection, which consists of a buried probe, a terminal acquisition instrument and a software system. Currently, the system has been used in the major pipeline companies of China to implement the remote monitoring of cathodic protection parameters in real time. However, there are such problems as high failure rate, low compatibility of the data management platform and simple algorithm of analysis and evaluation software. In this study, the development of the intelligent acquisition system of cathode protection potential, including the development of hardware and software, and the situation of field application, was reviewed, the problems encountered in application were summarized, and prospect was made in terms of improving the level of standardization, increasing the reliability, solving the hot issues and aiding the construction of intelligent pipelines. Subsequently, more efforts should be made in the study of the reliability and standardization of the acquisition system and the fields of application should be expanded, so as to provide technical support to the construction of intelligent pipelines.