Abstract:
This study focuses on understanding the effect of TiO2 micro particle introduction on surface morphology, structure, thermal stability, mechanical properties, and corrosion performance of NiB coatings. The surface morphology is observed to become rough and irregular by the addition of the TiO2 microparticles. However, TiO2 micro particle inserted NiO coating (NiB@TiO2) retained the clusters of grains type morphology as that of NiB coating. The crystallinity of NiB coating increased by addition of TiO2 particles and no significant changes in the thermal behavior of the Ni~B coating is observed by the formation of NiB@TiO2 composite. Upon addition of TiO2 the mechanical properties Ni~B composite such as nano hardness and elastic modulus and corrosion potential improved. The improvement in hardness, elastic modulus was clearly due to addition of the harder and stiffer TiO2 particles which caused Orowan strengthening while the improved corrosion performance was attributed to the reduction in significant number of active corrosion sites brought about by the introduction of inert TiO2 particles.