INMAN

INtelligent MANufacturing of advanced tailored coatings deposited on low cost materials for highly demanding tribological applications

By using aqueous dispersed nanoparticles in electrolytic and electroless plating solutions, it is hoped to deposit composite surface coatings onto cheaper base metals.

Three types of nanoparticles, SiC, Diamond and spherical alumina, are co-deposited in electrolytic NiFe coatings and electroless NiP coatings.

Plasma treatment was to have been used to make the nanoparticles dispersible, but when this did not work, a chemical treatment was used instead. The delays in receiving suitable nanoparticle dispersions lead to a 6 months extension being granted to the project.

Three end-users will test these composite coatings in high-tech applications, including the coating of steel-based gears, steel-based ball bearings and for moveable parts in electronic equipment.

Guidelines for the deposition of these composite coatings will be established, as well as suitable techniques to enable quick characterisation of industrial composite coatings to be achieved.

Apart from the experimental aspects, two universities, in the Inman project, will develop a better understanding of the co-deposition mechanism using numerical analyses modified by experimental results.