Quantitative study of the effect of high-performance zinc alloy coating technology on the life of mechanical components

Corrosion of mechanical components has been of wide interest in recent decades. Corrosion is caused by physicochemical action between a metal and its environment, which can result in changes in the metal’s properties and functional damage in mechanical components. The main corrosion manifestations of zinc alloy coatings in marine environments are discussed in this paper, which first explores the application of high-performance aluminum alloy coatings in industry. Subsequently, the ZAS35 alloy used for this paper was experimentally prepared, and orthogonal tests were utilized to determine the optimum matching values of process parameters for zinc alloy coatings to generate materials. The hardness and wear resistance of ZAS35 were evaluated against other zinc alloys. An iterative learning control algorithm was employed to determine the thickness of the zinc alloy coating. The optimal control of the steady-state process of coating thickness can be achieved by using the NARX dynamic neural network model as a predictive identification model for zinc alloy coating thickness. Finally, data were collected using an optical microscope to quantitatively analyze the effect of zinc alloy plating on mechanical life. When the thickness of zinc alloy is 1.7 μm, the probability of life is [947.56,978.36]×10³h interval t=0.999, which is improved by 409~684.11×10³h compared with the plating thickness of 1.10μm . After adding aluminum elements to zinc plating, the corrosion potential of the plating decreases from −800mV to −1000mV, and the zinc-aluminum alloy prevents electrochemical corrosion of the plated layer with cathodic corrosion inhibition.