Galvanize 87 – The Sorel Award Edition

This issue of the Galvanizers Association of Australia’s magazine features four amazing projects submitted for the 2024 Sorel Award and a technical feature on steel chemistry and the role it plays in coating formation when steel is hot dip galvanized.

For those who aren’t aware, the Sorel Award celebrates the start of the industrialization of hot dip galvanizing when Stanislaus Sorel submitted his patent for the hot dip galvanizing process back in 1836. In Australia, hot dip galvanizing has a proud history of local use, including for the poles used in the famous Overland Telegraph line from around 1877 and local manufacturing at scale commenced well over 100 years ago. Samples of the original poles are still in evidence around the country and the Alice Springs Telegraph Station is well worth a visit if you want to see a few poles in captivity!

Our judges for the 2024 Sorel Award had a difficult job of adjudicating on four projects with completely different characteristics, from two cable suspension bridges spanning gullies in SA, a duplex coated structure sitting 200 metres above ground in central Sydney, a significant multi-storey car park extension in Ballarat, to a series of gantries for the new gateway to Sydney airport. In the end, the cable suspension bridges at Hallett Cove were adjudged to be the Sorel Award winner for Albury Galvanizing and you can read about each project in the following pages.

This edition of GALVANIZE also features a technical article on the effects of differing steel chemistry on the hot dip galvanized coating characteristics. The steel composition can play an important role in the appearance, thickness and soundness of the formed coating. For critical  structures, knowing the steel composition from the test certificates at the fabrication stage can assist all parties in long-term corrosion protection.

Download GALVANIZE 87 here.