Enhancement of wear resistance of mild steel using nano crystalline CoW coatings through electroplating technique

Abstract

Now a days, mild steel is highly utilized material in the mechanical industry for various applications and the major problem is in enhancing its wear resistance and corrosion resistance. In the current research work, nano structured thin layer of CoW metal alloy is deposited on the surface of mild steel through electroplating technique to enhance the mechanical properties of mild steel. The procedure is carried out at constant current density of 10 mA/cm2, over a period of 60 minutes at the pH value of 6. All the coated samples were subjected to the structural and mechanical characterizations like field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDS), X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD) and wear analysis. The structural analysis of CoW coated mild steel reveals that the CoW coatings are crack free, bright and uniform and all the coatings exhibited the 90% of Cobalt content with 10% of Tungsten content. Through XRD result, it was concluded that all the coatings exhibited crystalline nature and found that the crystalline size was in the few tenths of nanometer with cubic crystalline structure. The wear behavior of CoW coated mild steel was analyzed using pin on disc method and it is concluded that the wear resistance of coated mild steel is greatly enhanced as compared with the uncoated mild steel. The respective frictional force coefficient, wear rate and volume loss have been calculated. The nano crystalline coatings of CoW have significantly enhanced the mechanical properties of mild steel as compared with uncoated mild steel.