Abstract
The galvannealing process results in thermal residual stress in zinc–iron alloy coating on steel substrate due to differential thermal behaviour of the coating and the substrate. The magnitude of biaxial tensile residual stress generated just after cooling has been estimated theoretically and the value is found to be high enough to cause through-thickness cracks in the coating. Energy model has been adopted to determine the distribution of cracks and crack spacing in the galvannealed (GA) coating. The same was investigated from the microstructural analysis using scanning electron microscope. It is shown that the estimated crack spacing is always lower than the actual values. Subsequently a stress field develops around each crack tip which induces a non-uniform triaxial stress state in the coating.
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