Abrasive wear behaviour of electrodeposited nanocrystalline materials

The effect of grain size refinement on the abrasive wear behaviour of nanocrystalline Ni, Ni-P and Co electrodeposits and the critical materials properties that influence the abrasive wear resistance were studied using the Taber wear test. As the grain size of Ni decreased from 90 μm to 13 nm, the dominant abrasive wear mode changed from ploughing to cutting and the Taber wear resistance was considerably improved by the increases in hardness and surface elastic properties. The abrasive wear behaviour of Ni with various grain sizes can be described using the attack angle model, which takes into consideration the randomly dispersed Al₂O₃ abrasive particles in the Taber wheel with various sizes, shapes and orientations. Depending on the phosphorus content, the nickel-phosphorus (Ni-P) alloys containing up to 6 wt.% P had nanocrystalline or mixed nanocrystalline-amorphous structures and both regular and inverse Hall-Petch behaviour were observed as a result of the microstructural changes with increasing P content/decreasing grain size. The wear resistance, like hardness, followed the Hall-Petch type behaviour, demonstrating that the smallest grain size does not necessarily provide the best wear resistance. For all Ni-P alloys, the wear resistance was improved by heat treatment due to Ni₃P precipitates and, for materials with high P content, nanocrystallization of the amorphous phase. For heat-treated Ni-P alloys, however, the highest hardness did not give the best wear resistance. Despite the grain size reduction of Co from 10 μm to 17 nm, there was no significant change in the wear resistance due to the unusually high degree of plastic deformation of the nanocrystalline material.; In addition to hardness and surface elastic properties which are usually considered important material properties that control the abrasive wear resistance, Taber wear ductility was introduced as a new material intrinsic property which can be applied to explain abrasive wear resistance for cases when the former two parameters are poor indicators such as for heat-treated Ni-P with high P content and nanocrystalline Co. The results of this study have shown that both nanocrystalline Ni and Ni-P coatings could be of significant technological importance in the area of wear resistant coatings.