It is a well-known statistic that the most common reason for end of service life for truck trailers is corrosion failure resulting in an unsafe and/or esthetically unacceptable condition. Similarly truck platforms commonly fail from corrosion, especially in the northern, eastern and coastal regions where de-icing and/or ocean salts play havoc on steel rolling stock.

The devil is in the details as they say, and never more true than in complex welded structures that tend to behave badly when dipped in the molten zinc of a galvanizing kettle! This is particularly the case when platforms including checker plate or similar anti-slip formed surfaces are included.

With many years of experience dealing with these engineering challenges, the galvanizer was able to work together with the fabricator-engineers to optimize both the design details of the 9,000 pound platform and use the precisely controlled hot-dip galvanizing process to successfully galvanize a previously un-galvanizable product.

With experience with many complex platforms, the galvanizer could bring many proven ideas for drainage design, welding methods and sequences as well as profile selection to address the natural distortion tendencies of such structures. Next, the state-of-the-art process control technology assured that problematic variations in the HDG cycle could be eliminated to insure successful results time after time. Precise control of chemistry, temperature, immersion time and vertical travel speeds can maximize consistency and optimize esthetic appearance. Additionally, the same process control system provides drill down reporting to identify the cause of any undesirable variations in final product.

These new capabilities in the galvanizing industry are opening new markets where previously galvanizers were unable to meet client expectations. This is expanding the areas that we can bring the amazing value equation of hot-dip galvanizing!

These costly crane equipped truck platforms live a difficult service life with exposure to rough material handling and very corrosive de-icing chemicals, but will now be able to deliver roofing and other building materials to construction projects for many more years without corrosion failures or maintenance thanks to the long-proven power of HDG and the newly proven power of modern galvanizing techniques.