Evaluation of Fracture Toughness and Mechanical Properties of Aluminum Alloy 7075, T6 with Nickel Coating

A study on mechanical and fracture properties, through the experimentation techniques has been carried out on a Al 7075-T6 and it coated with an Electroless Nickel deposits of 10–20 μm in coating thickness. In the recent years there has been considerable interest in the Electroless Nickel plating due to its extensive use in electronics, automobiles, aerospace and other industries. Electroless Nickel plating is a controlled autocatalytic reduction of nickel ions using suitable reducing agent such as sodium hypophosphite. ASTM Standard – E 399 for plane strain fracture toughness determination was adhered in this investigation. The results obtained, show that the EN coating can give rise to a significant improvement in the fracture behavior (performance) of the substrate and also it has shown that EN coating exhibit a very good adhesive property to the alloy material when the tensile stresses exceeding the yield strength are applied to the system and performance of these pretreatments was studied by SEM analysis.