Study On Electroless Nickel Plating Process On Carbon Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Resin Composite

Carbon fibre reinforced polymer matrix composites (CFRP), with its light, hightemperature resistence, resistence to corrosion, high resistance to compression strengthand shear strength, and excellent fatigue durability and damping characteristics, hasbeen used in more and more fields to replace traditional metal materials. Polymer matrixcomposites has shortcomings like non-conducting, no heat conduction, poor abrasiveresistance, mutability, not resistant to pollution and lack of metal luster which limit thescope of its use to some extent. Because the chemical coating has a good corrosionresistance and wear resistance, high hardness and uniform coating thickness, etc., Sothe method of chemical nickel plating was used to metalize the surface of carbon fiberreinforced polymer matrix composites, in order to enhance the properties of matrixmaterial like hardness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance.The coarsening, sensitization, activation technology which were pretreatmenttechnology before chemical nickel plating of carbon fibre reinforced epoxy resincomposite material were discussed, with coating appearance of the performance testdone to determine the best time and temperature of the coarsening, sensitization,activation technology; Single factor experiment was done to determine the best pHvalue, temperature and the approximate scope of component content of the platingsolution; Then using the orthogonal experiment method, the optimal formulacomponents of fiber reinforced the epoxy resin composite material chemical platingNi-P alloy solution was studied, and the plating species in optimal group were tested byXRD, SEM and EDS test and also the corrosion resistant performance test was done;Finally the chemical plating Ni-P/SiC composite coating technology and performancewere studied to determine the optimal adding quantities of SiC particles andcomparatively analyse the corrosion resistance of Ni-P under the alloy coatings andNi-P/SiC composite coating with optimal solution formulas.The test results showed that the best formula of chemical nickel plating solutionwas: NiSO432g/L; NaH2PO230g/L; C3H6O321ml/L; C2H3NaO216g/L. The hardness ofthe plating amorphous structure under the best solution formula was520HV, and Pelement content was11.88%, which proved that high phosphorus plating was good inthe point of the corrosion resistance. The SiC adding amount in Chemical platingNi-P/SiC composite coating was8g/L making the coating performance best, and thehardness of plating with amorphous structure was680HV. Tafel polarization curve proved Ni-P alloy plating was better than the Ni-P/SiC composite coating on corrosionresistance.