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T
he dry dock of the Madero Maritime Terminal is the largest dry dock in Latin America, ca- pable of handling ships up to
250 m. It is a strategic installation for the operation of the maritime terminal and for the distribution department of 8-5-@ :MÅVIKQ~V
to obtain an integral corrosion evaluation of the steel structures. Conditions found on each structure demanded complex solutions to improve the actual corrosion control systems. For the atmospherically exposed areas, the solution was based on applying special coatings to irregular surfaces with many cavities, which are a challenge to cover with regular paints. For the submerged and buried struc-
tures, the best solution was the applica- tion of cathodic protection (CP), but \PM OMWUM\Za UILM Q\ LQNÅK]T\ \W XZMLQK\ the current behavior and the magnitude of the nonvisible metallic structures ne- KM[[Q\I\ML ÅMTL \M[\[ IVL V]UMZQKIT [QU]- lation to estimate the total current requirements.
Inspections and Results The Lock Gate
The lock gate is a steel structure di-
^QLML QV\MZVITTa QV\W Å^M KPIUJMZ[ WN different capacities. The chambers are
NACE International, Vol. 51, No. 3
Corrosion
Assessment and CP Design for a Large Dry Dock in the
Gulf of Mexico
Centro de Investigación en Ingeniería y Ciencias Aplicadas, UAEM, Toluca, Mexico LORENZO M. MARTINEZ DE LA ESCALERA, JORGE J. CANTO, LORENZO MARTÍNEZ, AND JOSÉ A. PADILLA,
HERNÁN RIVERA AND ARTURO GODOY SIMON, Corrosión y Protección Ingeniería S.C., Morelos, Mexico
CARLOS G. LOPEZ ANDRADE AND CECIL H. KNIGHT, PEMEX Refinación, Huasteca, Mexico
LEONARDO DE SILVA-MUÑOZ, Instituto de Investigaciones Eléctricas, Morelos, Mexico JORGE A. ASCENCIO, Instituto de Ciencias Físicas,
Tis article reports the engineering work and
numerical modeling for the complete diagnosis and refurbishing of the cathodic protection system for the largest dry dock in Mexico.
March 2012 MATERIALS PERFORMANCE 31 Universidad Nacional, Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico