Combination of electrophoretic and electroless depositions to fabricate Ni/TiC cladding

A novel method is established that improves the shortcoming of embedding low volume fraction of reinforcements in Ni-P electroless coating. Experimental design of the present study is based on 5 steps: (1) electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of titanium carbide core inside the Ni-P shell particles (2) pre-sintering of as-EPD layer (3) electroless deposition of Ni-P top layer on as-EPD layer (4) heating the multilayer structure and (5) infiltration of the Ni-P melt phase through porous EPD layer. Anchoring TiC particles inside a Ni-P shell was done for catalyzing electroless Ni-P deposition on as-EPD layer and improving the high-temperature wettability of the EPD layer. By infiltration sintering on EPD layer (20 V for 2 min) a composite coating of Ni-P/TiC with a volume fraction of similar to 49% TiC was successfully produced. According to wear test results, embedding TiC into Ni-P significantly increases hardness (972-1460 VHN) and reduces friction coefficient (0.45-0.23).