Plastic Deformation in an Amorphous Ni-P Coating

Abstract

An experimental and numerical investigation of the hardness and associated plastic deformation in as-deposited and as-annealed nickel-phosphorus (Ni-P) coatings was conducted. In addition to the indentation-deformation behavior, the deformation morphology underneath the indenter was examined. The yield strength extracted from the indentation data is as high as 5.6 GPa, indicating pressure-sensitive plasticity. Results show that the as-deposited Ni-P coating was deformed appreciably through the shear-band mechanism with semicircular and radial shear-band morphologies. From the incremental loading-unloading cyclic experiments, the phenomena on hardening and recovery, which have scarcely been recognized in amorphous materials at room temperature, were observed in the amorphous coating using instrumented nanoindentation. A numerical simulation of the interfacial indentation test between the Ni-P coating and the substrate reveals the pileup and shear bands of the Ni-P coating that were observed during the indentation tests.