Microbiological corrosion of ASTM SA105 carbon steel pipe for industrial fire water usage

The large number of metallic systems developed for last few decades against both general uniform corrosion and localized corrosion. Among all microbiological induced corrosion (MIC) is attractive, multidisciplinary and complex in nature. Many chemical processing industries utilizes fresh water for fire service to nullify major/minor fire. One such fire water service line pipe attacked by micro-organisms leads to leakage which is industrially important from safety point of view. Also large numbers of leakage reported in similar fire water service of nearby food processing plant, paper & pulp plant, steel plant, electricity board etc...In present investigation one such industrial fire water service line failure analysis of carbon steel line pipe was analyzed to determine the cause of failure. The water sample subjected to various chemical and bacterial analyses. Turbidity, pH, calcium hardness, free chlorine, oxidation reduction potential, fungi, yeasts, sulphide reducing bacteria (SRB) and total bacteria (TB) were measured on water sample analysis. The corrosion rate was measured on steel samples and corrosion coupon measurements were installed in fire water for validating non flow assisted localized corrosion. The sulphide reducing bacteria (SRB) presents in fire water causes a localized micro biological corrosion attack of line pipe.