I understand that tendencies for electrochemical corrosion exist where moisture (as the electrolyte and typical schedule-40-dimension} raceway passes from soil to air, concrete to air or soil to concrete. It is murderous with aluminum pipe, and much less so for brass {$$} or nickel-chromium {$$$} raceway alloys. The UL white books stress this under the phrase, “supplementary protection.”
In extreme cases where soil is strongly alkaline (high pH) there are asphaltic-based (versus vinyl) tape/mastics that are applied to many types of subsurface metallic piping, For thousands of hard-core situations {like $1M/hour-leaking cross-country 30-inch oil line} the coating durbility can be effectively enhanced with judiciously applied sacrificial anodes driven with DC excitation—looking like stone-age golfcart battery chargers.
Soil resistivity {1/conductivity} varies all overr the place, directly affecting corrosion rates.
[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 01-25-2005).]
