What is "galvanization"

Galvanization \Gal"va*niza`tion\, n. The act of process of galvanizing.

1798, formed as a noun of state to go with the vocabulary of galvanism; perhaps immediately from French galvanisation (1797 in the "Annales de chimie et de physique").

n. The act or process of galvanize.

1. n. stimulation with a galvanic current [syn: galvanisation]

2. stimulation that arouses a person to lively action; "the unexpected news produced a kind of galvanization of the whole team" [syn: galvanisation]

3. either the work of covering with metal by the use of a galvanic current or the coating of iron with zinc to protect it from rusting [syn: galvanisation]

Galvanization, or galvanisation, (or galvanizing as it is most commonly called in that industry), is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron, to prevent rusting. The most common method is hot-dip galvanizing, in which parts are submerged in a bath of molten zinc. Galvanizing protects in two ways:

• It forms a coating of corrosion-resistant zinc which prevents corrosive substances from reaching the more delicate part of the metal.
• The zinc serves as a sacrificial anode so that even if the coating is scratched, the exposed steel will still be protected by the remaining zinc.
• The zinc protects its base metal by corroding before iron, for better results application of chromates over zinc is also seen as an industrial trend.