Zinc consumption in a continuous galvanizing line is one of the highest operating cost items in the facility and minimizing zinc waste is a key economic objective for any operation. One of the primary sources of excessive loss of zinc is through the formation of top dross and skimmings in the coating pot. It has been reported that the top skimmings, manually removed from the bath, typically consist of more than 80% metallic zinc with the remainder being entrained dross particles ($Fe_2Al_5$) along with some oxides. Depending on the drossing practices and bath management, the composition of the removed top skimmings may contain up to 2 wt% aluminum and 1 wt% iron. On-going research efforts have been aimed at in-house recovery of the metallic zinc from the discarded top skimmings prior to selling to zinc recycling brokers. However, attempting to recover the zinc entrapped in the skimmings is difficult due to the complex nature of the intermetallic dross particles and the quality and volume of the recycled zinc is highly susceptible to fluctuations in processing parameters. As such, an efficient method to extract metallic zinc from top skimmings has been optimized through the use of a specialized thermo-mechanical process enabling a continuous galvanizing facility to conserve zinc usage on-site. Also, through this work, it has been identified that filtration of discrete dross particles has been proven effective at maintaining the cleanliness of the zinc. Future efforts may progress towards expanded utilization of filters in continuous galvanizing.

Main issues in the automotive industry are the reduction of vehicle body weight for energy savings and improvement of crashworthiness for passenger safety. In order to address both these issues, there has recently been increasing application of galvannealed advance high strength steel (GA AHSS) sheets for automobiles. However, GA AHSS sheets have some surface defects such as coating bare spots due to the addition of solid-solution strengthening elements, which result in the deterioration of the galvannealing reaction. In this study, the effects of galvannealed manufacturing conditions on surface and mechanical properties, resistance spot weldability on a laboratory scale, and GA 980 MPa steel sheets produced by commercial continuous galvannealing line (CGL) were investigated.

Corrosion of metallic materials occurs by the reaction with corrosive environment such as atmosphere, marine, soil, urban, high temperature etc. In general, reduction of thickness and cracking and degradation are resulted from corrosion. Corrosion in all industrial facilities and infrastructure causes large economic losses as well as a large number of accidents. Economic loss by corrosion has been reported to be nearly 1-6% of GNP or GDP. In order to reduce corrosion damage of industrial facilities, corrosion map as well as a systematic investigation of the loss of corrosion in each industrial sector is needed. The Corrosion Science Society of Korea in collaboration with 15 universities and institutes has started to survey on the cost of corrosion and corrosion map of Korea since 2005. This work presents the results of the survey on cost of corrosion by Uhlig, Hoar, and input-output methods, and the evaluation of atmospheric corrosion rate of carbon steel, weathering steel, galvanized steel, copper, and aluminum in Korea. The total corrosion cost was estimated in terms of the percentage of the GDP of industry sectors and the total GDP of Korea. According to the result of Input/output method, corrosion cost of Korea was calculated as 2.9% to GDP (2005). Time of wetness was shown to be categories 3 to 4 in all exposure areas. A definite seasonal difference was observed in Korea. In summer and fall, time of wetness was higher than in other seasons. Because of short exposure period (12 months), significant corrosion trends depending upon materials and exposure corrosion environments were not revealed even though increased mass loss and decreased corrosion rate by exposure time.

Lean duplex stainless steels have been developed in Korea for the purpose of being used in the seawater systems of industry. There are also many important seawater systems in nuclear power plants. These systems supply seawater to cooling water condenser tubes, heat exchanger tubes, related pipes and chlorine injection systems. The flow velocity of some part of seawater systems in nuclear power plants is high and damages of components from corrosion are severe. The considered lean duplex stainless steels are STS329LD (20.3Cr-2.2Ni-1.4Mo) and STS329J3L (22.4Cr-5.7Ni-3Mo) and PRENs of them are 29.4 and 37.3 respectively. Physical, mechanical and micro-structural properties of them are evaluated, and electrochemical corrosion resistance is measured quantitatively in NaCl solution. Critical Pitting Temperatures (CPT)s are measured on these alloys and pit depths are evaluated using laser microscope. Long period field tests on these alloys are now being performed, and some results are going to be presented in the following study.

DLC is considered as the candidate material for application of moving parts in automotive components relatively in high pressure and temperature operating conditions for its high hardness with self lubrication and chemical inertness. The properties of interlayer between the substrate and the DLC film were studied. Arc ion plating method have been employed to deposit onto substrate and sputtering method was used for synthesizing DLC onto interlayer. Among these six types of interlayer, deposited DLC film onto TiCN showed excellent value for characteristics. From the results of analysis for physical properties of DLC films, it seems that the adhesion forces were more important factors than intrinsic mechanical properties such as hardness, roughness and wear resistance of DLC films. AFM(Atomic Force Microscope) was used for understanding roughness of DLC films. Hardnesses of the coating layers were identified by nano-indentation method and adhesions were checked by scratch method.

Corrosion properties of Al-0.3Ga-0.3Sn, Al-0.3Mn-0.3Ga, and Al-0.3Mn-0.3Sn alloys were examined to develop an anode material for Al-air battery with alkaline aqueous or ethanol electrolyte. The results of potentiodynamic polarization tests showed that the electrode potential of the Al alloys were lower than the pure Al, implying the cell voltage can be increased by using one of these alloys for an anode in 4 M KOH aqueous solution. The corrosion rate appeared to be increased by alloying Ga but to be reduced by Sn and Mn in the aqueous solution. The ethanol solution is expected to improve the cell performance in that the electrode potential and the corrosion rate of Al were lower in ethanol solution than in aqueous solution. However the Al-(Ga, Sn, Mn) alloys are not favorable in ethanol solution because of the high potential and corrosion rate.