Jiang Zhonghao

Electroless Ni-P Deposition on Magnesium Alloy from a Sulfate Bath

A technology for electroless Ni-P deposition on AZ91D from a low cost plating bath containing sulfate nickel was proposed. The seal pretreatment was employed before the electroless Ni-P deposition for the sake of occluding the micro holes of the cast magnesium alloy and interdicting the bubble formation in the Ni-P coating during plating process. And pickling pretreatment can provide a better adhesion between the Ni-P deposition and AZ91D substrate. The deposition speed of the Ni-P coating is 29 μm/h. The technology is employed to AZ91D magnesium alloy automobile parts and can provide high hardness and high wear-resistant. The weight losses of Ni-P plated and heat-treated Ni-P plated magnesium alloy specimen are only about 1/6 and 1/10 that of bare magnesium alloy specimen after 10 min abrasion wear, respectively. The hardness of the electroless Ni-P plated brake pedal support brackets is 674.1 VHN and 935.7 VHN after 2 hours heat treatments at 180 °. The adhesion of Ni-P coatings on magnesium alloy substrates meets the demands of ISO Standards 2819. The technology is environment friendly and cannot cause hazard to environment because of absence of chromate in the whole process.

Dislocation-mediated creep process in nanocrystalline Cu

Nanocrystalline Cu with average grain sizes ranging from ~ 24.4 to 131.3 nm were prepared by the electric brush-plating technique. Nanoindentation tests were performed within a wide strain rate range, and the creep process of nanocrystalline Cu during the holding period and its relationship to dislocation and twin structures were examined. It was demonstrated that creep strain and creep strain rate are considerably significant for smaller grain sizes and higher loading strain rates, and are far higher than those predicted by the models of Cobble creep and grain boundary sliding. The analysis based on the calculations and experiments reveals that the significant creep deformation arises from the rapid absorption of high density dislocations stored in the loading regime. Our experiments imply that stored dislocations during loading are highly unstable and dislocation activity can proceed and lead to significant post-loading plasticity.

Effects of cold rolling deformation on microstructure, hardness, and creep behavior of high nitrogen austenitic stainless steel

Effects of cold rolling deformation on the microstructure, hardness, and creep behavior of high nitrogen austenitic stainless steel (HNASS) are investigated. Microstructure characterization shows that 70% cold rolling deformation results in significant refinement of the microstructure of this steel, with its average twin thickness reducing from 6.4 μm to 14 nm. Nanoindentation tests at different strain rates demonstrate that the hardness of the steel with nano-scale twins (nt-HNASS) is about 2 times as high as that of steel with micro-scale twins (mt-HNASS). The hardness of nt-HNASS exhibits a pronounced strain rate dependence with a strain rate sensitivity (m value) of 0.0319, which is far higher than that of mt-HNASS (m = 0.0029). nt-HNASS shows more significant load plateaus and a higher creep rate than mt-HNASS. Analysis reveals that higher hardness and larger m value of nt-HNASS arise from stronger strain hardening role, which is caused by the higher storage rate of dislocations and the interactions between dislocations and high density twins. The more significant load plateaus and higher creep rates of nt-HNASS are due to the rapid relaxation of the dislocation structures generated during loading.

FMAA-MS Investigation into Ni68Fe32 Nanoalloy with Sample Length Less than 30 mm

An investigation into the properties of nanocrystalline (NC) materials with sample lengths less than 30 mm seems to be a challenge by using conventional mechanical spectroscopy (MS). We use a newly developed frequency modulation acoustic attenuation mechanical spectroscopy (FMAA-MS) to investigate phase transition in Ni68Fe32 NC alloy (22 nm) where the length of the sample is 10 mm. An internal friction peak accompanied by an abrupt increase in resonant frequency occurs at 641 K, which originates from order-disorder phase transition, confirmed by a vibrating sample magnetometer and differential scanning calorimetry.

Residual stress induced wetting variation on electric brush-plated Cu film

Nanocrystalline Cu film with a mirror surface finishing is prepared by the electric brush-plating technique. The as-prepared Cu film exhibits a superhydrophilic behavior with an apparent water contact angle smaller than 10°. A subsequent increase in the water contact angle and a final wetting transition from inherent hydrophilicity with water contact angle smaller than 90° to apparent hydrophobicity with water contact angle larger than 90° are observed when the Cu film is subjected to natural aging. Analysis based on the measurement of hardness with nanoindentation and the theory of the bond-order-length-strength correlation reveals that this wetting variation on the Cu film is attributed to the relaxation of residual stress generated during brush-plating deposition and a surface hydrophobization role associated with the broken bond polarization induced by surface nanostructure.