Distek (Armorgalv)
The Better Way to Protect Your Products against Corrosion
This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine, Issue 3 2022.
Distek helps manufacturers make better anti-corrosion coatings in-house with an innovative technology that includes easy-to-operate thermal diffusion galvanising (TDG) coating lines and patented powder and materials.
Many manufacturers pay extra and use external coating providers instead of doing their coating in-house, which requires a unique facility, handling polluting waste and working with large quantities to make it profitable.
Distek changes all this, as its solution involves no hazardous materials or polluting waste. Its compact, easy-to-operate automated coating lines pay off even when it comes to small quantities. No special facilities are required.
Distek’s Anti-Corrosion Coating
Distek’s thermal-diffusion zinc coating is achieved through a TDG process and is applied in accordance with a number of standards including ASTM A1059 and BS-EN 17668:2016.
Minimal surface pre-treatment is required before coating as spots of rust, grease residue and oiling cooling agent on the component’s surface generally don’t affect the coating. All it usually takes is just going through a shot blast machine.
The process provides a consistent thickness within a range of 20-120μ, even on internal surfaces.
The vapourised zinc penetrates the surface to become integrated with the substrate material and creates a zinc-iron layer. The passivation (finishing) and top-coating processes strengthen the corrosion resistance, creating a hard, non-magnetic weldable coating that is also flexible.
This means that in many cases components can be bent into new shapes without any damage to the coating, and they’re also compatible with a wide variety of coverings and paints.
Higher Corrosion and Abrasive Resistance
Distek’s coating method has also been proven to provide better-quality protection through stronger corrosion resistance.
Testing has shown the coating stands up to the most extreme conditions, including 3,000 hours of salt spray testing, and is 5–10 times better than the hot-dip galvanising (HDG) method.
It also offers high abrasive resistance, with micro-hardness of up to 1636HV, preventing nut seizure in stainless steel bolts.
