12th International Conference on Zinc & Zinc Alloy Coated Steel Sheet - GALVATECH 2021

It is well known that the steel industry is going through an important period of change, driven in part by new paradigms in the car industry and by the popularity of new alloys of competing metals. Coatings have become a strategic part of this puzzle and, now more than ever, bath composition is playing a key role. From the challenges on coatings from press hardened steels to the great potential of magnesium enriched galvanizing recipes, bath composition has become a huge center of discussion. In the past decade, industrial LIBS sensors have demonstrated their capacity to simultaneously monitor all the elements of interest for both established processes like Galvanneal and Galvanize, as well as for more recent coatings like magnesium-alumium zinc alloys and new generation of Galvalume. In this paper, we present industrial data from the next generation of in-line LIBS sensor. This new generation has moved from lamp-based laser sources to diode-based laser sources. A diode-based laser source provides a more stable measurement and does not require water cooling, therefore removing the burdens related to moisture management and premature optical degradations. Results about for GA, GI and mag-alu processes are presented. Industrial data shows that the new generation LIBS sensor requires significantly less maintenance and less calibrations throughout the year.