Press hardening of hot-dip-galvanized steel sheet yields an innovative product with high strength and reduced weight with drastically increasing industrial importance. This process results in an austenitisation
of the steel and a conversion of the 10 lm Zn layer into a 20 lm thick coating consisting of zinc saturated a-iron and C-FeZn-phases. A 5-times longer protection is found in cyclic corrosion tests. The mechanism is a combination of the increase of the coating thickness, cathodic protection and the barrier properties of simonkolleite in the corrosion products. Simonkolleite-Zn5(OH)8Cl2, hydrozincite- Zn5(CO3)2(OH)6 and akaganeite-b-FeOOH were identified as corrosion products by XRD, FT-IR and Raman
spectroscopy.