Comparative study on structure, corrosion and hardness of Zn-Ni alloy deposition on AISI 347 steel aircraft material

Zn-Ni alloys were electrodeposited on AISI 347 steel aircraft materials from various electrolytes under direct current (DCD) and pulsed electrodepositing (PED) techniques. The effects of pulse duty cycle on thickness, current efficiency and hardness of electrodeposits were studied. Alloy phases of the Zn-Ni were indexed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. Microstructural morphology, topography and elemental compositions were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). The corrosion resistance properties of electrodeposited Zn-Ni alloy in 3.5% NaCl aqueous solution obtained by DCD and PED were compared using potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique. Elemental analysis showed that 88% of Zn and 12% of Ni obtained from electrolyte-4 by PED technique at 40% duty cycle for 50 Hz frequencies having better corrosion resistance than that of deposits obtained from other electrolytes. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.