Abstract

Electroless nickel coating is a revolutionary coating process that can be effectively used to cover a spectrum of alloys and composites, each having its own features. Electroless nickel coatings have been primarily utilized for purposes of both corrosion resistance and wear resistance. Additional qualities, such as overall smoothness of the deposit, low friction, acceptable plating rate, and both electrical properties and magnetic properties, makes them an appropriate choice for a wide variety of applications. Characteristics of the electroless nickel coating are essentially determined by both constituents of the electroless solution, and the conditions used during deposition. Bath temperature, nickel source concentration, and pH of the solution are three key deposition parameters. Furthermore, heat treatment does tend to alter microstructure of the coating and thereby exert an influence on hardness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance. In recent years, researchers have published their findings pertinent to an evaluation of electroless nickel coating on the performance of various types of substrates based on hardness, roughness, corrosion resistance, friction, and wear resistance. Several viable ways aimed at solving the challenges specific to parameter optimization have been put forth in the published literature. In this research study, the electroless coating process was performed based on fractional factorial design. The optimal coating parameters were determined using the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) approach. The findings reveal bath composition can be used to optimize thickness of the coating.

Keywords: Electroless nickel plating; Design of experiments; Analysis of variance; Interaction plots