Stone Impact Damage to Automotive Paint Finishes: Impact Induced Corrosion in Painted Pre-Coated Sheet Steels

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Thermal Wave Imaging (TWI) are complementary techniques which can be used to detect and estimate Impact Induced Corrosion (IIC) at the metal-polymer interface. This paper describes the use of the above techniques to detect Impact Induced Corrosion in a variety of pre-coated and painted sheet steels. It has been possible to show, that IIC is a threshold phenomenon and depends on the type of galvanized coating. Evaluation of IIC, using a high performance indoor accelerated test and preliminary data from the proving grounds are presented in this paper.