The effect of nickel plating on Mg alloy

Abstract

Magnesium (Mg) alloys absolutely have potential applications of engineering light materials which recently they have acquired abundant of attention due to their low weights. Weight reduction is strongly demand toward electronic and automobile components in order to reduce the energy consumption. Besides that, Mg alloys which are high strength to weight ratio, high thermal conductivity and good electromagnetic shielding make them widely used as construction materials in many industries. However, low corrosion and wear resistance of Mg alloys limit their widespread usage. Thus, different voltages and plating times of nickel (Ni) plated onto Mg alloys surface are studied to improve the physical and mechanical properties of Mg alloys after Ni plating. Moreover, the corrosion behaviour of Ni plated samples are investigated. The Mg alloys are plated at 6V, 8V and 10V in 10, 20 and 30 minutes. Nickel sulphate (NiSO4) concentration is fixed at 0.1M. The different values of voltages and coating times much effect the results on the hardness and the microstructures of the samples. The higher the voltage, the higher the Ni thickness produced therefore increase in hardness values of samples. It can also be seen when refers to the microstructure analysis and the Tafel graph of polarization of the Mg alloy samples. The samples with higher thickness have lower corrosion rate compared to Mg alloy before Ni coating.