Analysis of Orange Peel Defects on Hot-Dip Galvanized High Strength Low Alloy Steel

The surface of hot-dip galvanized high strength low alloy (HSLA) steel easily occurs orange peel in the deformation process. On the other hand, the defects possess a specific directivity and sits at approximately a 45-degree angle to the sheet steel rolling direction. The microstructures and properties of steel specimens with the orange peel defects and the normal were analyzed, which results showed that their microstructures consist of ferrite and few granular pearlite. The yield point elongation of the HSLA steel resulted in the orange peel defects on the surface of sheet stamping and it is associated with skin rolling and stretch rolling process. Further studied on the fine microstructures by means of SEM and electron back scatter diffraction (EBSD) techniques, which was apparent for the defect steel that the orange peel defects were resulted from weak favorable {111} texture might be the key factors aggravating the formation of orange peel defects. It can be concluded that the formation of Cottrell atmospheres caused the yield point elongation by the interaction between dislocation and diffusive solute atoms as basic reason and the directivity of the orange peel defects was related with the LUDERS slip forming. The yield point elongation can be eliminated to avoid the orange peel defects beyond to 1.8% skin-rolling and stretch rolling method with an appropriate annealing technology.