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Description
ZnAlMg (ZM) metallic coatings are already in use since the start of their development in the late 2000’s, while the production still benefits from a steady volume increase. It has been proven already that this type of metallic coatings is having an excellent corrosion resistance in divers harsh environments.
One of the highly used markets for this type of metallic coatings is the solar panel market, where different Zn-based metallic coatings are used as supporting structures for solar parks. These parks are typically installed in environments where the conditions can be quite harsh. Supporting poles need to be buried into the soil, where different soil parameters are influencing the corrosion. Another way of burying profiles in soil is by embedding them in concrete, which can also cause important corrosion, mainly during the initial drying phase after installation.
In the exposed part of the structures, several mechanisms of corrosion will take place, depending on the location. Atmospheric corrosion is the main one, but in desert areas (with a high amount of sunny hours, making them a preferred location to install large solar parks) also sand abrasion needs to be taken into account. It will be shown in this work to be an important factor influencing the lifetime of the protecting metallic coatings.
In this study, the performance of ZnAlMg was compared to other well-known Zn-based coatings in several of these harsh environments.
Keywords
ZnAlMg metallic coating, solar, soil corrosion, atmospheric corrosion, sand abrasion, hot dip galvanising