Research on tensile property and creep resistance of electroplating nickel reinforced by A12O3 nanoparticles

In this work, the tensile property and creep behavior of electrodeposited nanostructure Al2O3-Ni composite coatings have been investigated. The nanocomposite coatings were produced by composite electrodeposition technique in a nickel sulphamate bath containing suspended nano-sized Al2O3 particles. The structure of the obtained coatings was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the Al2O3 content was analyzed from quantitative energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX). It has been found that the existence of Al2O3 particles disturbed the law of nickel deposition and decreased the grain size of nickel film. The tensile test showed an apparent increase in the strength of composite nickel coatings as compared with that of pure nickel coatings. Also the steady state creep rate of the composite nickel is lower than that of the pure nickel, which illustrated that the creep resistance was improved by adding Al2O3 nanoparticles as the dispersion strengthened second-phase.