The requirements for pipeline construction and corrosion protection are becoming increasingly demanding. For modern construction with sustainable protection, selecting the right materials is both crucial and challenging. Although compliance with product-specific regulations is often seen as a guarantee for the universal suitability of products, it is nevertheless limited. On the one hand, the mere achievement of compliance with standards (like ISO or EN) may be too low to confirm suitability for a specific pipeline design or construction. On the other hand, products are already available today that far exceed the requirements of these international leading standards. The mere fulfilment of the respective standards is therefore only of limited importance. It should initially be understood as proof of quality. In addition, a product should fulfil the real and project-specific requirements of a pipeline.

For the first time the German Technical and Scientific Association for Gas and Water Sectors (DVGW), as an internationally recognised industry association, has created a guideline for this issue in its Code of Practice GW 32. The use of this code facilitates the evaluation of corrosion protection products for buried steel pipelines by defining the “real” necessary technical requirements for the construction. The introduction of these construction categories marks a significant advance in efficiency, quality and user-friendliness in the selection and classification of the right corrosion protection materials. The code improves the comparability of products and increases the accuracy of the selection, thus ensuring the durability of corrosion protection.