Thermal stability of electrodeposited nanocrystalline nickel assisted by flexible friction

Nanocrystalline nickel coating was prepared by flexible friction assisted electrodeposition technology in an additive-free Watts bath. The coating consists of massive equiaxial crystals with an average grain size of about 24 nm and exhibits a (111) preferred orientation. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis of nanocrystalline nickel demonstrates that the peak temperature of rapid grain growth is about 285.4 °C, and the peak temperature of grain growth towards equilibrium is around 431.5 °C. The isochronous annealing results reveal that abnormal grain growth behavior is not observed in nanocrystalline nickel without sulfur-containing. The thermal stability of the deposition was improved due to its initial microstructure of the as-deposited nickel and a certain amount of annealing nano-twins with low-energy, which reduces the driving force for grain growth. Consequently, the coating shows a low residual tensile stress of about 50 MPa and a high microhardness of HV 400 at the annealing temperature of 450 °C.