Materials Properties of Nickel Electrodeposits as a Function of the Current Density, Duty Cycle, Temperature and pH

Alloy 600 having a superior resistance to a corrosion is used as a steam generator tubing in nuclear power plants. In spite of its high corrosion resistance, there are many tubings which experience corrosion problems such as a SCC under the high temperature and high pressure environments of nuclear power plants. The Alloy 600 tubing can be repaired by using a Ni electroplating having an excellent SCC resistance. In order to carry out a successful Ni electrodeposition inside a steam generator tubing, the effects of various parameters on the material properties of the electrodeposit should be elucidated. Hence this work deals with the effects of an applied current density, duty cycle($T_{on}/(T_{on}+T_{off})$) of a pulse current, bath temperature and solution pH on the material properties of Ni electrodeposit obtained from a Ni sulphamate bath by analyzing the current efficiency, potentiodynamic curve, hardness and stress-strain curve. Hardness, YS(yield strength) and TS(tensile strength) decreased whereas the elongation increased as the applied current density increased. This was thought to be by a concentration depletion at the interface of the electrodeposit/solution, and a fractional decrease of the hydrogen reduction reaction. As the duty cycle increased, the hardness, YS and TS decreased while the elongation increased. During an off time at a high duty cycle, the concentration depletion could not be recovered sufficiently enough to induce a coarse grain sized electrodeposit. With an increase of the solution temperature and pH, the YS and TS increased while the elongation decreased. The experimental results of the hardness and the stress-strain curves can be supplemented by the results of the potentiodynamic curve.