INSIGHTS INTO THE MORPHOLOGICAL AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ELECTROGALVANIZED COATINGS

Steel plays a key role in many areas around the world, including the automotive, machinery and equipment, energy, construction and infrastructure industries. In developing countries, the steel industry has led and continues to lead other sectors. As a result of the rapid developments in steel production, the industrial revolution has taken place and great advances have been made in the field of technology. Steel used in industry has high strength, corrosion resistance and advanced production technology. Chemical or electrochemical reactions occur over time on the surfaces of steel obtained as a result of various alloys of iron, depending on their usage areas and locations. In this case, surface coating process is carried out in order to protect the surface of metals against external factors. Metals such as zinc, copper, tin, chromium, nickel, nickel and gold are used in the surface coating process of steels. Zinc coating, which has the most widespread use among metallic coating methods, is called galvanizing. The most widely used method in the coating process in the automotive industry is the electro galvanized coating method. The method is carried out by electrolysis. The steel part is immersed in an electrolyte solution and an electric current is applied to precipitate zinc ions on the metal surface. In this study, electro galvanized (EG) coating applied on DD13 sheet material was investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) in terms of coating thickness, homogeneity, morphology and elemental properties. As a result, the zinc alloy content of the electro galvanized coating, the distribution and density of the elements in the coating layer, and the corrosion resistance of the coating were examined