Electrochemical noise analysis of cavitation erosion corrosion resistance of NbC nanocrystalline coating in a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution

Abstract

To combat cavitation erosion-corrosion damage inflicted upon mechanical components in marine applications, NbC nanocrystalline coatings were synthesized by a double cathode glow discharge assisted reactive sputtering method. The coating comprised equiaxed B1-NaCl-type NbC grains with an average grain size of ~10 nm and a strong NbC (200)-oriented texture by TEM observation. The electrochemical response of the coating exposed to a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution with and without the influence of cavitation was monitored by electrochemical noise (EN) measurements, in addition to open circuit potential and cyclic polarization. To differentiate the cavitation erosion-corrosion resistance between the NbC coating and a reference Ti-6Al-4V alloy substrate, the EN data were further evaluated, based on a series of analyses, including frequency domain, time-domain, shot noise and wavelet transform. For the Ti-6Al-4V alloy, with increasing output power, the noise resistance (Rn) and slope (k values) of potential and current power spectral density (PSD) decreased, and the average charge in each corrosion event (q) and the total energy of d series crystals increased markedly at the output power levels above 400 W, indicative of a high propensity of pitting corrosion for this alloy. Conversely, the Rn and k values for the NbC coating were found to be almost independent of the output power, and the charge of the corrosion event and the total energy of the d series crystals were much lower than that of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The findings garnered from analyzing the EN signals is in accord with what were uncovered from examining the eroded surface morphologies, suggesting that the EN method might offer a reliable and effective tool to probe the cavitation erosion-corrosion behavior in developing durable material.