Design of Compacct Controller and Poweer Module for

Corrosion annd Marine Growth Prevvention

T. Manasa Gangothri, P.K Sumitha, Mr. S.A.Srinivasa Moorthy, Dr. Selvajyothi K, Dr.
D Noor Mahammed Sk.

Indian Institute of Inforrmation Technology Design & Manufacturing Kanncheepuram

manasagangothri89@gmail.com, sumitha.nnbr@gmail.com, sasmoorthy@gmail.com, ksjyothi@iiitdm.ac.in, noor@iiitdm.ac.in

Abstract—This paper presents the design of compact

c controller metallic component (anode), innto the electrolyte and onto the
and power module for corrosion protection as well as marine metal (cathode). Fig. 1 shows an ICCP system as applied to a
growth prevention in marine structures su uch as ship hulls, ship hull.
cargos, vessels etc. The system designed proovides an electrical
solution to the problem of marine growth and corrosion in
metallic structures in marine environment. Thhe digital controller
constantly monitors the ship hull potentiaal using reference
electrode and gives control signal to the power module so as to
impress the correct amount of current on to the
t surface of ship-
hull through the external anodes, thereby prottecting the shiphull.
This system provides an increased level of protection against
corrosion as compared to the traditional meth hods. The compact
power module is designed using a buck reggulator IC and the
controller uses PIC18F microcontroller which provides control
signal to the power module based on the level of corrosion. The
system is tested in simulation and experimentally verified.

Keywords - Corrosion, marine growth, controlller, power module,

reference electrode,ICCP, regulator, microcontrooller Figure 1. ICCP
I system.

I. INTRODUCTION ICCP system mainly comprisses of hull mounted reference

Impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP)) system & marine electrode, controller and powerr module. The reference voltage
growth prevention system (MGPS) are the two main systems for silver/ silver chloride electrode is -800 mV. Reference
used for corrosion protection on ship hulls and
a marine growth electrode constantly monitorss the ship hull potential. The
prevention on the surface of the ships, offfshore production potential of the ship hull is fed
fe to the controller unit of the
platforms, tanks or pipelines respectively. Corrosion
C is driven ICCP system. The power moduule impresses the correct amount
by the potential difference between two eleectrodes connected of current onto the shiphull thhrough the external anode based
by an electronic path and immersed in thee same electrolyte. on the control signal from the controller section. The external
Metals ions are lost from the anode throughh the electrolyte to anode is flush mounted on the ship hull. The block diagram of
the cathode resulting in corrosion at the anoodic areas. Marine the existing system is shown in Fig. 2.
organisms enter the structure and findd a spot where
temperature, nutrients, pH factor and othher environmental
conditions are suitable for settling and breeding. Cathodic
protection [1,2] & Marine growth preventiion are long term
solutions for the corrosion and Marine grow wth problem where
the cathodic protection controls corrosion byb preventing the
current flow between the metal and elecctrolyte while the
MGPS system prevents marine growth by forming an
anticorrosive film on the surface due to t the externally
impressed current [3].
II. ICCP & MGPS SYSTEEM
Cathodic Protection is a system of prevennting corrosion by
forcing all surfaces of a structure to be cathodes by providing
external anodes. ICCP system uses an exterrnal current source
to direct a current flow to occur off the surface of added Figure 2. Existing technology of ICCP system

978-1-4673-2605-6/12/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE

The existing technology uses transformer based power unit [4]
thus resulting in a bulky system and severe thhermal issues. The
main controller in the old design of IC CCP system is a
potentiometer based controlled voltage souurce with discrete
MOSFET design taking up a substantial space.
The stepped down AC output from the main m transformer is
fed to an SCR based rectifier module folllowed by DC-DC
converter and a filter section. The output from
m the filter section
is impressed onto the shiphull through the exxternal anodes. The
use of expensive SCR and diodes is anotheer drawback of the
existing system. The efficiency is as low ass 33% and has no
standardized design.
Marine growth on the surface of sea s chest or pipes
obstruct the free flow of water thus resultiing in overheating
reduced efficiency, increased corrosion and also loss of vessel
speed. The MGPS system does not make use of reference
electrode. Thus based on the set potential cuurrent is impressed
onto the surface of the sea chest through the external anodes.
Anodic ions are liberated which results in thhe formation of an
anticorrosive film thereby inhibiting the marrine growth. Fig. 3
shows the arrangement of the MGPS system..
Anoodes
Water
inlet
Figure 3. Arrangement of MGPS sysstem.
With the constraint for space in ships annd boats the design
had to be compacted. The proposed soluution is a highly
compact design [5] that will overcome the isssues of the existing
system. Thus the technology includes moddular power units
with each module capable of 20A. The deesign is an SMPS
based design replacing the bulky transform mer based system.
The common control system controls the am mount of current to
be impressed on to the marine structures for corrosion and
marine growth prevention. The system operattes on 440V AC or
220V AC. It comprises of a reference eleectrode [6] whose
output varies with the level of corrosionn, controller, data
logging unit and Modular DC-DC voltage controlled current
source. The MGPS design is based on a veryy similar principle
to the ICCP system excepting that the refereence is a set value
against which the controller will ensure the seet current.
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
The proposed system block diagram of ICC CP is as shown in
Fig. 4. The system comprises of an embeddeed data acquisition
unit, controller and modular power unit. The system constantly
monitors the ship hull potential using Ag/AAgCl electrode and
gives control signal to the power module soo as to impress the
correct amount of current ontto the surface of the ship hull
through the external anodes.
The electric potential of thee ship hull gives the measure of
the level of corrosion at the shhip hull seawater interface. The
measure potential is in milliivolts range and needs to be
amplified before being fed too the controller unit. Thus the
signal is fed to Analog Front End
E followed by analog input of
the 10-bit ADC of the microconntroller unit (PIC18F4520) [7, 8,
9]. The controller applies thee control algorithm onto to the
analog voltage and thus geneerates the corresponding PWM
signal which is fed to the powerr unit.
Figure 4. Block diagram of
o the proposed ICCP system.
The control signal from miccrocontroller is fed to the current
controller followed by the regulator
r circuitry which uses
LM2596. The amount of curreent being impressed is displayed
on 3 digit 7 segment display. In I the case of MGPS system the
set potential is fed directly using the user interface.
A. Proposed Controller Card
The controller card has PIC18F F4520 as core MCU. Based on
the electrode potential the PIC generates PWM signal
with corresponding duty cyccle. The PWM duty cycle is
directly proportional to thhe load current. Thus, by
controlling the PWM duty cycle, c the load current can be
carefully adjusted so as to ennsure optimal protection of the
ship hull throughout. The conttroller card comprises of analog
front end and controller unit. The hardware of the controller
card is shown further in Fig. 6dd.
1) Analog Front End
The Analog Front End used to t condition the input obtained
from Ag/ AgCl Electrode. Ag// AgCl electrode has a reference
potential of -800 mV.
An electrode potential greaater than -800mV indicates an
increased rate of corrosion i.ee., the system is underprotected
and an increased amount of cuurrent needs to be impressed. An
electrode potential less than -8800mV indicates that the system
is overprotected and the amounnt of current impressed needs to
be reduced since increased am mount of current may result in
structural damage. Thus the electrode constaantly monitors the
potential at the hull sea-water interface.
A test circuit is designed to emulate the reference electrode
and thus to produce an input ranging froom -2000 mV to
+2000mV. The input signal is fed to a bufffer for impedance
matching. Next is gain stage providing a gaain of 2.5. Fig. 5a
shows the amplifier circuit. The amplified signal is fed to a
differential amplifier to add an offset of +5V
V to the signal. The
output signal ranges from 0 to 10V. The output
o is fed to an
opamp attenuator circuit so as to vary the voltage from 0 to
+5V. The voltage offset and attenuator circuuit is shown in Fig.
5b. The output is fed to a buffer and a filteer and then to the
analog channel of the microcontroller. Fiig. 5c shows the
schematic of filter circuit. The circuit makkes use of LM358
opamp IC [10]. The LM358 series consists of two
independent, high gain, internally frequeency compensated
operational amplifiers which were designeed specifically to
operate from a single power supply over a wide range of
voltages.
Figure 5a. Amplifier circuit.
Figure 5b. Voltage offset and Attenuatorr circuit.
Figure 5c. Filter circuit.
2) Controller Unit
Embedded Data Acquisition and Controller for corrosion
control is designed using Micrrochip PIC controller. PICs are
self-contained microcontrollerss often including clock, I/O, and
a host of peripherals on-chip.. The great advantage seen by
adopting the PIC was a chip with onboard analog to digital
converters available in a 40-ppin DIP package. In addition a
serial port and multiple timer/counters were available.
Fig. 6a, 6b, 6c shows the schematics
s of the controller card
which controls the operation off the ICCP system. It constantly
monitors the ship hull potenttial using silver/silver chloride
electrode and gives control signnal to the power module so as to
impress the correct amount of o current on to the surface of
ship-hull through the externall anodes. The output current is
carefully adjusted by the contrroller so as to give the optimum
level of protection at all timess. This system is more effective
and increases the level of prootection against corrosion. The
Controller is designed for foour operating modes with user
interface, alarm system and datta logging facility.
The user keys, LCD Dissplay & buzzer provide user
interface for the system thus aiding
a in remote monitoring. At
power up, the system shall dissplay ‘ICCP System’ and enters
Menu mode when enter key is pressed. The system is
programmed for four operatioonal modes- Stand-by, Manual,
Configuration and Automatics Mode. The various modes can
be selected using the user keys provided.
Figure 6a. PIC
C18F4520 MCU
Figure 6b. Userr key interfacing
 2) Regulator Circuit
The regulator circuitry uses an LM2596 [12] monolithic
Integrated Circuit that providees all the active functions for a
step-down (buck) switching reggulator, capable of driving a 3A
load with excellent line and looad regulation. The load current
varies with the variation of vooltage at pin 4(feedback). Fig. 8
shows the schematics of regulattor circuitry.

Figure 6c. LCD interfacing.

Figure 8. Reguulator Circuitry.

3) Current Display circuit

The current display circuitt has been designed using

MSP430F2272 as shown in Figg. 9a, 9b, 9c. The ADC module
present internally is used to diisplay the current. A substantial
voltage drop obtained across thhe one ohm resistor is fed to the
analog channel of MSP4330F2272 through the signal
conditioning circuit as shown in Fig. 9b. The converted value
is compared with the set vallues in the ADCMEM register
Figure 6d. Controller card. present internally in the ADC module.
m The corresponding load
current is displayed in the seveen segment display connected to
B. Proposed Power Module
the MSP430F2272 as shown inn Fig. 9c.
The power module has been designed to gennerate 3A variable
load current based on the control signal.. It comprises of
current controller, regulator circuit and currrent display unit.
The schematics of the power module is disscussed below and
the hardware is shown further in Fig. 10.
1) Current Controller
This circuit converts different pulse widths ofo the PWM signal
to corresponding voltage levels which is feed to the feedback
pin of the LM2596 buck regulator circuuit which in turn
generates the variable load current at the ouutput. The PWM is
generated from the microcontroller depennding on the set
current. The control circuit is as shown in Figg 7.

Figure 9a. MSP430 Microcontroller Unit

Figure 7. Current Controller.

 protection. . In the configuratiion mode, access code provides
access to the service functionss provided in the configuration
mode. To gain access to this mode
m a valid pass number needs
to be entered. Upon entering this mode, configuration menu
allows access to set the system parameters such as system size,
electrode type, electrode num mber, Over protection potential,
Under protection potential annd quit configuration. The up
down keys allow scrolling thrrough the menu items, and on
pressing the ENTER button the displayed configuration mode
selected. In the automatic moode the output current from the
system is varied to maintain a constant electrode potential.
The display indicates the valuue of current as a percentage of
the total system capacity and allso the overprotection and under
protection alarms.
Figure 9b. Signal conditioning circuitry

Figure 11. Firm

mware for ICCP.
Figure 9c. Seven segment display interfacing

V. SIMULA
ATION RESULTS
Fig. 12 shows the proteus Viirtual System Modeling (VSM)
simulation snapshot of ICCP syystem comprising of PIC MCU,
user interface and LCD displayy interfacing. The controller has
been simulated in proteus and the ICCP system functionalities
are verified in real time simulattions.

Figure 10. Three Amperes power moddule.

IV. SOFTWARE DESIGN

The ICCP system is designed for four operaating modes which
are stand-by mode, manual mode, automatic mode and
configuration mode. The firmware is show wn in Fig. 11. The
system is controlled by the five user keys ono the front panel,
with the information displayed on the two line sixteen
character display above them.
In the Stand-by mode all output current from
f the system is
shut down to zero. The display indicates the t output voltage
and automatically indicates alarms. In the Manual mode the
output current from the equipment is set annd maintained at a
constant level. The display indicates the set value
v of current as
a percentage of the total system capacity and automatically
indicates alarms in the case of overprootection or under Figure 12. Proteus VSM Simulation
S (ICCP system).
Fig. 13 shows the proteus VSM model of thhe current display
of the power module. The set potential is fed using the
animated push button and thus on real tim
me simulation the
corresponding current is displayed on thhe seven segment
display.

Figure 14. Set up for tessting corrosion protection.

VI. CO
ONCLUSION
A unique design of controllerr and power module for varied
marine applications has beeen proposed. The system is
compacted and has a standaardized design which replaces
bulky transformer based systemms for corrosion protection. The
system was successfully teested and validated both in
simulation and real time.
Stackability of the modules results in higher currents in the
case of high current requiremeents. Also, the system is proven
to be more redundant and reliabble.

Figure 13. Proteus VSM Simulation (MGPS system). ACKNOWLLEDGMENT

We are thankful to Mr.Sriram Bhaskaran, Mr. Suresh and Mr.
VII. EXPERIMENTAL RESU ULTS Aswin Lab staff at IIITD&M Kancheepuram
K for their valuable
The table A shows the load current obtainedd using the power help and support.
module for varied duty ratios. The has been tested in hardware
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