The aim of this project is to produce pre-finished steel sheet with metallic coatings and - compared with conventional materials - significantly improved application-related properties (corrosion, forming, and joining behaviour and paintability) by means of galvannealing steel sheet with metallic pre-coatings. Since the influence of the selection of the pre-coating and the galvannealing processing parameters on the resulting application related properties is essentially unknown, the investigations will focus on three "model-materials" each of them being intended for improvement of distinct properties: a) corrosion resistance; b) phosphatability, paintability, corrosion resistance; c) weldability, formability, phosphatability, paintability, corrosion resistance.

Substrates of different steel grades will be pre-coated by electrogalvanizing and PVD. The galvannealing process will be carried out on a laboratory scale with a hot dip galvanizing simulator but under process conditions which are comparable with industrial hot dip galvanizing lines.