The effect of steel composition on iron solubility in molten zinc and coating microstructure was studied by immersing test coupons of four different steel grades in zinc bath for 20 min at 470°C. The amount of iron dissolved in the molten zinc depends upon the steel composition. The coating was characterized by energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and galvanostatic methods. The coating consists of mainly z (zeta) and d (delta) phases along with zinc layer at the top, irrespective of the steel composition. The presence of a thin layer of gamma phase has also been confirmed by XRD and galvanostatic analysis. However, the proportion and distribution of the coating phases varies with the steel chemistry.KEY WORDS: iron dissolution; hot-dip galvanizing; iron zinc alloys.
ExperimentalThe iron dissolution and galvanizing experiments were carried out in an alumina crucible. Four different steel compositions (namely S 1 , S 2 , S 3 and S 4 ) were selected so that the effect of different interstitial and substitutional alloying elements like C, Si, P etc. could be examined. The details of cold rolled and annealed steel strips used in the experiments are listed in Table 1.Commercially pure zinc (800 g. of 99.99 % purity) was melted in the alumina crucible and held at 470°C for 15 min prior to each experiment to avoid any thermal gradient within the bath. Small test coupons (45ϫ40 mm 2 ) of 1 mm thick steel strips were pickled in hot HCl (15 %) for about 1 min and immediately dipped in the molten zinc for 20 min. The liquid zinc bath was stirred by the immersed sample after every 5 min (i.e. after 5, 10 and 15 min). For the entire experiment, the liquid zinc was maintained at 470°C (Ϯ5°C) in a closed chamber furnace. The dipping time was decided based on the iron saturation limit in zinc and the time required to attain that. The saturation limit of iron in molten zinc can be calculated from the following equation where [Fe] is in wt% and T is in Kelvin.The saturation limit comes to be 0.053 wt% at 470°C. The time required for saturation of molten zinc is in hours.5) The dipping time was therefore chosen such that significant iron dissolution takes place without attaining saturation in order to reveal the effects of different steel compositions. At the end of dipping i.e. after 20 min, the zinc bath was again stirred, the top dross was removed and steel test coupon was taken out of the bath quickly and air cooled. The molten zinc was cast in a sand mould. Chemical analysis of the cast zinc was carried out. This analysis has given the amount of Fe dissolved during 20 min of dipping in the molten zinc for each sample, which has been discussed in Sec. 3.1. A mixture consisting of 1 % picric acid in amyl alcohol and 1% nitric acid in amyl alcohol was used as the etchant. The micro structural and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) characterization of the transverse section was carried out under scanning electron microscope (SEM) for coated samples to examine the elemental distribution across the coating. The coati...