Development of advanced hybrid materials with the help of pulse electrodeposition

Journal article, 2015

Pulse-electrodeposition has been applied to enhance properties of two different types of lightweight construction materials, a periodic cellular material (PCM) and a micro-sandwich. For the PCM, the deformation behaviour of the nanocrystalline Ni-18wt.%Fe sleeve material (bulk samples) has been investigated up to 548 K. The material exhibits plasticity of >30% fracture strain at higher temperatures compared to <15 % at room temperature. TEM characterization shows that coarser grains are present which enable strain hardening by intra-granular dislocation accumulation. This leads to larger fracture strains at higher temperatures. Hence, for allowing application of the PCM at elevated temperatures, the sleeve material has to be stabilized against deformation-induced grain growth. For the micro-sandwich, the pulse-electrodeposited Nickel coating on the face sheets or polymer fibres of the sandwich core can provide extra strength. With respect to the fibres, the plating process needs to be improved further to achieve a continuous and homogeneous coating.