Abstract
This paper aims to present an experimental investigation for optimum tribological behavior (wear depth and coefficient of friction) of electroless Ni-P-Cu coatings based on four process parameters using artificial bee colony algorithm. Experiments are carried out by utilizing the combination of three coating process parameters, namely, nickel sulphate, sodium hypophosphite, and copper sulphate, and the fourth parameter is postdeposition heat treatment temperature. The design of experiment is based on the Taguchi L27 experimental design. After coating, measurement of wear and coefficient of friction of each heat-treated sample is done using a multitribotester apparatus with block-on-roller arrangement. Both friction and wear are found to increase with increase of source of nickel concentration and decrease with increase of source of copper concentration. Artificial bee colony algorithm is successfully employed to optimize the multiresponse objective function for both wear depth and coefficient of friction. It is found that, within the operating range, a lower value of nickel concentration, medium value of hypophosphite concentration, higher value of copper concentration, and higher value of heat treatment temperature are suitable for having minimum wear and coefficient of friction. The surface morphology, phase transformation behavior, and composition of coatings are also studied with the help of scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, and energy dispersed X-ray analysis, respectively.
Highlights
Electroless coatings have gained wide acceptance due to their excellent corrosion and wear resistance properties [1]
This is an optimization problem dealing with four input parameters, namely, concentration of nickel sulphate solution (x1), concentration of sodium hypophosphite solution (x2), concentration of copper sulphate solution (x3), and postdeposition heat treatment temperature (x4), and two output parameters, namely, wear depth (W) and coefficient of friction (COF)
Electroless ternary Ni-P-Cu coating has been developed on mild steel substrate by varying four design parameters, namely, concentration of nickel source, concentration of reducing agent, concentration of copper source, and postdeposition heat treatment temperature
Summary
Electroless coatings have gained wide acceptance due to their excellent corrosion and wear resistance properties [1]. Electroless coating, known as chemical or autocatalytic coating, is a nongalvanic plating method that involves several simultaneous chemical reactions in an aqueous solution, which occur without the use of external electrical power. This makes this process different from conventional electroplating process which requires external current source. Liu and Zhao [24] studied the corrosive property of electroless Ni-P-Cu to compare it with binary Ni-P coating at different corrosive atmosphere and it reveals that Ni-P-Cu coating shows better anticorrosive property than binary Ni-P coating in HCL and NaCl medium. A similar comparative study was performed by Wang et al [25] among the electroless Ni-P-Cu coating, Ni-P coating, and stainless steel and it was found that at 50% NaOH solution medium the Ni-P-Cu coating shows better anticorrosive property than others
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