Improvement of 6061 aluminum alloys wear resistance by electrodpositednickel coating

To improve the wear resistance of a 6061 aluminum alloy, a 20 μm nickel layer was electrodeposited from a modified Watts bath. The characteristic of nickel coating was identified by means of SEM and XRD. The nickel coating had a regular pyramid structure. Furthermore, the preferred crystallographic orientation of the coating was (200). Wear tests were performed on a pin-on disk tribometer under normal load of 2 N at a sliding distance of 300m. The nickel coated sample with higher hardness showed better wear behavior in comparison with the aluminumsubstrate. This was mainly attributed to the higher hardness of nickel coating and formation of tribological layer on this coating.

Keywords:

Aluminium alloys , Nickel coating , Electrodeposition , Wear