Influence of Nickel-Coated Nanostructured WC-Co Powders on Microstructural and Tribological Properties of HVOF Coatings

Abstract

In this research, a novel nickel-coated nanostructured WC-12Co powder (Ni/nc-WC) was developed and used as feedstock material for high velocity oxygen fuel process. The Ni/nc-WC powders with average WC grain size of ~15 nm were produced by mechanical milling and electroless plating processes. The microstructural and tribological characteristics of Ni/nc-WC coating were investigated and compared with those of microcrystalline WC-12Co (mc-WC) and nanostructured WC-12Co (nc-WC) coatings. X-ray diffractometry, high-resolution field emission scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy were used to evaluate the microstructure of the powders and coatings. A ball-on-disk technique was used to probe the wear behavior of the coatings. The Ni/nc-WC coating showed negligible decarburization of ~5.4%, while mc-WC and nc-WC coatings suffered from higher decarburization levels of 16.3 and 36.8%. The wear rate of Ni/nc-WC coating was 2.5 × 10−4 mg/m indicating ~ 75 and 82% increase in wear resistance compared with mc-WC and nc-WC coatings. The wear track analysis of mc-WC and nc-WC coatings showed evidences of delamination mechanism. Besides, a severe carbide pullout mechanism was operative in wear of nc-WC coating. As for Ni/nc-WC coating, individual carbide pullout following the elimination of Ni(Co) matrix was the predominant wear mechanism.