Investigation of tribological and mechanical behaviour of plasma-clad Ni/ZrB 2 composite coating on AISI 316 stainless steel

Abstract Plasma cladding was used to create nickel-based composite coatings with different weight ratios of ZrB 2 hard ceramic particles on AISI 316 stainless steel substrates. The uniformly homogenous dispersion of Ni and ZrB 2 particles was confirmed by SEM, the coating’s microstructures were primarily made up of hard compounds like ZrSi 3 , Fe 3 B, NiSi 2 , CrB, Ni 3 C, and Fe 3 C. In comparison to the substrate, the microhardness of the coatings containing 30 weight percent ZrB 2 in the preplaced alloy powder is raised by 8 times, the wear resistance increases 23 times. Using the Taguchi technique, the experiment’s design (DoE) was created, and the L8 orthogonal array was chosen for tribo-performance evaluation. The proportionate influence of the tribological factors on the responses was also determined using regression analysis and an ANOVA. The impacts of different process parameters on the fabricated composite samples and their tribological behaviour were examined. The present research expands the industrial applications of AISI 316SS by providing an innovative Ni/ZrB 2 /Plasma cladding combination using Taguchi optimization that produces a composite coating with enhanced mechanical and tribological qualities.