No hydrogen embrittlement

Sherardized products are guaranteed to be free from hydrogen embrittlement. This property is important for products made of spring steel, hardened or high-strength steel and safety components.

What is hydrogen embrittlement?

Hydrogen embrittlement is the embrittlement of metal because hydrogen becomes trapped in the material. The metal can weaken and break unpredictably. This phenomenon mainly occurs in high tensile steel.

Why does hydrogen embrittlement not occur in sherardizing?

Hydrogen embrittlement is caused by diffusion of atomic hydrogen in the steel. Sherardizing is a dry galvanizing process and the development of hydrogen embrittlement is therefore excluded.

No hydrogen embrittlement due to heating process

If products are not metallic blank, the pre-treatment consists of steel blasting. Hydrogen embrittlement does not stand a chance during this treatment. If hydrogen is present in the products, it will disappear during the heating process before the zinc-iron alloy layers are formed.

Guaranteed no hydrogen embrittlement by sherardizing

With other techniques, such as electrolytic and hot-dip galvanizing, the pre-treatment consists of pickling. During that process, products can absorb atomic hydrogen. Methods exist to reduce the risk of hydrogen embrittlement in such a process, but hydrogen embrittlement cannot be ruled out.

Sherardizing excludes hydrogen embrittlement in process engineering.