Hydrogen entry behaviour of newly developed Al-Mg-Si coating produced by physical vapour deposition

A ternary Al-Mg-Si alloy was prepared by co-evaporation technique and tested with respect to hydrogen entry behaviour as an alternative to conventional zinc coating on steel. Hydrogen entry behaviour evaluated using Devanathan cell showed a smaller hydrogen entry for this new coating than conventional zinc coating. Compared to an unscratched surface, hydrogen entry increased by more than 100 times in the scratched surface, but it was lower than that for the zinc coating with a scratched surface owing to the moderate galvanic corrosion potential of the new coating. This new coating is proposed especially for high-strength steel application. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.