Improving the wear, corrosion and tribocorrossion performance of low carbon steel with Ni-P-B and Ni-P-B-W electroless coatings

Wear and corrosion, which researchers have been intensively working on, defects and makes the metallic structured materials unused. It is known that wear and corrosion forms on the metallic materials, defects the devices and components which causes failure on working systems and important economic losses on countries economy. Humankind has not given up the usage of low alloy steel in industrial applications due to economic reasons, though the technological progress in nowadays. These materials have been used extremely at power trains, suspensions and brake systems in automotive, marine and aviation applications. To protect metallic surfaces from the wear and corrosion or increase the wear and corrosion resistance of the metallic surfaces, coatings can be used such as hard chromium, nickel, zinc or phosphate. It is a continuous issue for research and developments that is to improve and get more efficient and low cost coatings. Researches show that electroless coating is an ideal candidate for the protective corrosion coating application due to its wear and anti-oxidation resistance. This work aims to investigate the structural, corrosion and the study of wear features of the Ni-P-B and Ni-P-B-W polyalloys coatings by electroless coating technique on the mild steel substrate. A comparative investigation of morphological and hardness properties between Ni-P-B and Ni-P-B-W coatings is employed. Although electroless Ni-P-B coating exhibited the highest hardness value, corrosion resistance and tribocorrosion performance, electroless Ni-P-B-W coating showed the lowest wear rate and friction coefficient when subjected to dry sliding condition as compared to untreated steel and Ni-P-B coating.