Wear 311 (2014) 1420

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Wear
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wear

The study of corrosionwear mechanism of NiWP alloy

F.J. He n, Y.Z. Fang, S.J. Jin
State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 13 July 2013
Received in revised form
25 December 2013
Accepted 31 December 2013
Available online 8 January 2014

The wear resistance of NiP alloys can be improved by the addition of W; however, it is not well
understood how that addition will affect the corrosionwear characteristics of the alloy. Therefore, a Ni
WP alloy was prepared by electrodeposition and used for tribo-testing. The corrosionwear behavior of
the alloy, both in the as-prepared and heat-treated states, was investigated using a submerged ball on
disk apparatus in deionized water and in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. The ball material was Cr bearing steel.
The 400 1C heat-treated NiWP alloy had the minimum wear rate in both deionized water and 3.5 wt%
NaCl solution. In the 3.5 wt% NaCl solution, the heat-treated alloy displayed pitting and abrasive wear.
The NiWP alloy as-prepared, showed uniform corrosion. Its main wear process was corrosive, and it
showed adhesive wear when tested in the 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. In deionized water, the wear of the
NiWP alloy was caused by abrasion whether as-prepared or heat-treated. A synergy effect between
wear and corrosion existed in NiWP alloy, both in the as-prepared and heat-treated states when tested
in a saline environment.
& 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
NiWP alloy
Hardness
Corrosionwear
Wear mechanism
Synergy effect

1. Introduction
The corrosionwear behavior refers to the material loss which
is caused by mechanical wear and associated with chemical or
electrochemical corrosion. It widely exists in the equipment of coal
mining, oil and chemical engineering, and electricity industrial etc.
during their service processes. The material failure, which is
caused by corrosion and wear, has resulted in a huge loss to the
national economy [13].
As a discipline Friction and Wear emerged in the 1960s. The
topic about corrosionwear appeared more recently. It attracts the
people0 s interest because of its great harm and serious damages.
The material failure caused by corrosionwear was not merely
a summation of static corrosion and mechanical wear, but much
larger than that. In the corrosionwear environment, material
failure is usually accelerated by synergistic interaction between
the mechanical action of wear/rubbing and the corrosion reactions
occurring on the wear surfaces. A lot of research works have been
reported on the corrosionwear synergy effect [412]. Lee [13]
investigated the synergy between corrosion and wear of NiP
electrodeposits in NaCl solution using a block-on-ring tester
apparatus. Sun [14] studied the tribocorrosion behavior of AISI
304 stainless steel under unidirectional sliding in 0.5 M NaCl
solution using a pin-on-disk tribometer integrated with a potentiostat for electrochemical control. Bateni [15] investigated wear

Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 731 82710201; fax: 86 731 88808630.

E-mail address: fengjiao87799232@hotmail.com (F.J. He).

0043-1648/$ - see front matter & 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2013.12.024

and corrosionwear of medium carbon steel and 304 stainless

steel in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution using a pin-on-disk tribometer to
perform wear and corrosive wear tests. Dong [16] studied on
tribological properties of Al2O3 ceramics/1Cr18Ni9Ti stainless steel
rubbing pairs using a MMW-1 tribo-tester under pure water and
different concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) solutions.
Ma [17] investigated the tribological properties of a Fe3Al material
in an aqueous solution of 1 M H2SO4 corrosive environment sliding
against a Si3N4 ceramic ball. It is of signicant practical importance
for such research in many engineering systems, where materials
forming tribological contacts are exposed to a corrosive environment in various forms. The study of corrosionwear mechanism is
very important for reducing the loss of the material, the proper
use of metals and alloys and the control of corrosionwear rate.
NiWP alloy has characteristics of high hardness, high wear
resistance, high thermal stability, good corrosion resistance. Palaniappa [18] studied the deposition and tribological characteristics
of electroless binary NiP and ternary NiWP alloy coatings. The
experimental results proved that coatings with high tungsten
content exhibited very good wear resistance compared to binary
NiP as well as low tungsten ternary alloy deposits. Gao [19]
investigated the effect of the nanostructure itself on corrosion
resistance without the inuence of the second phase Ni3P in NiP
and NiWP deposits. It was found that the as-plated nanocrystalline deposits, whether the binary NiP or the ternary NiWP
alloys, and the annealed binary NiP alloy lms, had much lower
corrosion resistance than their amorphous counterparts. Lu [20]
investigated the corrosion resistance of NiP alloy and NiPW or
NiPMo alloys. The results showed that addition of W to NiP

F.J. He et al. / Wear 311 (2014) 1420

alloys can improve their corrosion resistance. Addition of Mo has

little or no benecial effects on corrosion properties. It has great
economic value and practical signicance using NiWP alloy to
solve some industrial equipment corrosionwear problems. So far,
there are few studies on the corrosionwear mechanism of NiW
P alloy. In this paper, the corrosionwear properties and mechanisms of electrodeposited NiWP alloy in as-prepared and 400 1C
heat treatment states were studied in detail, and it also lays down
an important theoretical basis for the application of NiWP alloy.

2. Experimental work
NiWP alloys were prepared by proprietary solution (Patent
number: 03124792) supplied by Hunan Nanolm New Material
Technology Co. Ltd. NiP alloys were prepared using the method
reported in the book [21]. The thicknesses of all alloys were
approximately 50 m.
The surface morphology was observed with a S4800 scanning
electron microscope (JEOL Ltd., Japan). In order to determine the
structure of as-prepared and heat-treated NiWP alloy, X-ray
diffraction (XRD) measurements were made with a Rigaku D/maxrA diffractometer using CuK radiation generated from a Cu target
at 50 kV and 100 mA.
Microhardness studies were done using HVS-1000 digital
microhardness tester with a Vickers indenter. A constant load of
200 g was applied for 10 s each to cause the indentations in all the
deposits and the hardness values were averaged out of ve such
determinations.
The corrosion behaviors have been evaluated by immersing
alloy samples vertically in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution for 600 h at room
temperature. The corrosion rates were determined by the weightloss after immersion and expressed in mg/(cm2 h). Alloys had xed
exposed area of 8 cm2 by protected extra area with gelatinizing
insulating lacquer with an approximately 50 m thickness.
All experiments were carried out on a MMW-1 tribo-tester,
which was made by Chenda Group in China. The diagram was
shown in Fig. 1.
NiWP alloy was deposited on a 45 steel ring with an
external diameter of 32 mm and an inner diameter of 11 mm.
The thickness of the ring was approximately 10 mm. The counterpart was GCr15 ball sample with 10 mm diameter.
The sliding wear tests of the NiWP alloys and GCr15 ball
rubbing pairs were conducted in deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl
solution. The rotational speed of the tester was 150 rpm with a
nominal load 150 N for 120 min. Three replicate wear tests were
carried out so as to minimize data scattering, and the average of
the three replicate test results were reported in this work. The
wear mass losses of NiWP alloys were measured using METTLER
electronic balance with precision of 0.1 mg. The worn surface
morphologies were observed with a S4800 scanning electron
microscope.

Ball sample
Oil box

3. Results
3.1. Characterization of NiWP alloy and NiP alloy
Chemical compositions of the as-prepared NiWP alloy and
electroless plated NiP alloy determined by EDS were shown in
Table 1. The results showed that NiWP alloy consisted of 2.85 wt
% P, 29.9 wt% W, 67.26 wt% Ni and NiP alloy consisted of 4.53 wt%
of P, and 95.47 wt% of Ni. The morphologies of the as-prepared
NiWP alloy and electroless plated NiP alloy were shown in
Figs. 2 and 3 respectively. NiWP alloy exhibited a smooth
surface with very ne and smaller nodules, while the NiP alloy
exhibited less number of individual and agglomerated nodules
with no regular arrangement.

3.2. Properties evaluation

3.2.1. Microhardness measurement
The effect of heat treatment on the hardness of the NiWP
alloy was shown in Fig. 4. Samples were annealed in a mufe
furnace for 2 h in open-air atmosphere under various temperatures (room temperature, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600 1C). As is
clearly evident, the hardness of the alloy increased with an
increase in the annealing temperature, and the peak value correspond to 400 1C, and then dropped at higher temperature.

3.2.2. X-ray diffraction patterns of NiWP alloy

X-ray diffraction patterns of NiWP alloy as-prepared and in
different anneal heat treatment temperature state were shown in
Fig. 5. For as-prepared and heat-treated at 200 1C NiWP alloy
samples, their pattern of XRD presented a broad peak characteristic of an amorphous structure. Their crystalline phases were a
supersaturated solid solution of P and W in Ni matrix and W atom
occupied Ni atom position. For sample heat-treated at 400 1C, its
XRD diffraction pattern displayed a sharp peak, and a characteristic relating to Ni3P, and Ni4W phases were observed. More welldened peaks were visible in the diffraction diagram of the sample
heat-treated at 600 1C, indicating the formation of new crystalline
phases possibly related to Ni and NiW phases.

3.2.3. Corrosion resistance

The corrosion rates of NiWP alloys as-prepared and heattreated which immersed in the 3.5 wt% NaCl solution at room
temperature were shown in Table 2. It was observed that all these
alloys showed corrosion rates lower than 1.11E  03 mg/(cm2 h).
The corrosion rates of the alloys were shown as-prepared NiW
Poheat-treated NiWP, i.e. As for as-prepared NiWP alloy, it
had higher corrosion resistance than alloy in heat treatment state.
For the NiWP alloy heat-heated at 400 1C, it showed the highest
corrosion rate. When heated beyond this temperature, the corrosion rate was found to decrease. The corrosion rates of NiP alloys
in the as-prepared and heat-treated states were much higher than
that of NiWP alloys.
Table 1
Composition of as-prepared NiWP alloy and NiP alloy determined by EDS
analysis.
Alloy

Medium

15

Ni-W-P alloy

Chemical composition (wt%)

Chemical composition (at%)

Ni

Ni

67.26
95.47

29.90

2.85
4.53

81.82
91.74

11.61

6.56
8.26

coating
NiWP
NiP
Fig. 1. A schematic sketch of the MMW-1 tribo-tester.

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F.J. He et al. / Wear 311 (2014) 1420

Fig. 2. Scanning electron micrograph of NiWP alloy produced by dc

electrodeposition.

Fig. 5. X-ray diffraction patterns of NiWP alloy annealed at different temperatures for 2 h.

Fig. 3. Scanning electron micrograph of NiP alloy produced by electroless

deposition.

900

400 1C in both deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. There
was a further increase in the wear rate values when heat treatment temperature was higher than 400 1C. This trend was the
result of mutual interactions among the hardness, wear resistance
and corrosion resistance. Therefore NiWP alloys as-prepared
and 400 1C heat-treated were chosen for further study.
An interesting thing was found in Fig. 6 when comparing wear
rates of alloys immersed in deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl
solution. When the heat treatment temperature was lower than
400 1C, the wear rates in deionized water were lower than those in
3.5 wt% NaCl solution; while when the heat treatment temperature was higher than 400 1C, the wear rates in deionized water
were higher than those in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution.
For comparison, the wear rates of NiP alloys in deionized
water and in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution were shown in Table 3. Testing
duration was 30 min. The results showed that the wear rates were
much higher than the NiWP alloys under the same conditions.

850
800
750
700
650
600
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Fig. 4. The microhardness of as-prepared and heat-treated NiWP alloys.

3.3. Tribological behavior

3.3.1. Wear rates
The effect of annealing temperature on the wear rates of Ni
WP alloys in deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl solution were
individually shown in Fig. 6. The wear rate of the alloy increased
slightly when the heat treatment temperature was under 200 1C,
and then it began to decrease as temperature went up. The
minimum of wear rate was observed for alloy heat-treated at

3.3.2. Friction coefcient

The friction coefcient of NiWP alloys as-prepared and heattreated in deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl solution were shown
in Fig. 7. The coefcient of friction detected in deionized water was
found to be more uctuating compared with those detected in
3.5 wt% NaCl solutions. In 3.5 wt% NaCl solution, the average
coefcient of friction of NiWP alloys in as-prepared state and
heat-treated at 400 1C state was 0.51 and 0.45, respectively. In
deionized water the average friction coefcient was 0.37 and 0.41,
respectively.
It also could be observed that the coefcient of friction of all
samples showed an increasing trend under the corrosive environment. The corrosive solution reduced the friction between the
substrate and the counter-face, which consequently decreased the
coefcient of friction. On the other hand, due to the surface
chemical reaction occurred at the same time, the surface roughness increased in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. Because of the mutual
interactions of these factors, the friction coefcient showed complex changes.
3.3.3. Microstructure of worn samples
SEM micrograph of worn surface morphologies of NiWP
alloys as-prepared and 400 1C heat-treated in deionized water
were shown in Fig. 8a and b. Bright and smooth plow markers in
different sizes could be seen. The relative motion of two surfaces

F.J. He et al. / Wear 311 (2014) 1420

17

Table 2
Corrosion rates of NiWP alloys and NiP alloys in NaCl solution.
Sample

As-prepared
NiWP

200 1C treated
NiWP

300 1C treated
NiWP

400 1C treated
NiWP

500 1C treated
NiWP

600 1C treated
NiWP

As-prepared
NiP

400 1C treated
NiP

Corrosion rates
mg/(cm2 h)

2.37E  04

6.05E  04

6.36E  04

1.11E  03

6.78E  04

7.26E  04

1.49E  03

9.31E  03

In deionized water
In 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution

Wear Rates(mg/h)

6
5
4
3
2
1
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Fig. 6. Wearcorrosion rates of NiWP alloys under different heat treatment

temperature in deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl solution.

Table 3
Wear rates of electroless plated NiP alloys in deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl
solution.
Sample

Hardness
(HV)

Deionized water
wear rates (mg)

3.5 wt% NaCl solution

wear rates (mg)

As-prepared
400 1C heattreated

552
860

38.075
13

61.9
16.5

times magnication, and Fig. 8e and f were in 500 times magnication. Exfoliation markers were seen in SEM morphology.
Compared with the wear in deionized water Fig. 8(a and b), worn
surfaces in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution were more serious. Although the
property of alloy in as-prepared state against 3.5 wt% NaCl solution corrosion was better than that in 400 1C heat-treated state
(see Table 3), the worn surface of as-prepared alloy (Fig. 8c and e)
experienced a more severe wear than that of 400 1C heat treatment alloy (Fig. 8d and f) under the same conditions. Large area of
the oxide layer, a small amount of peeling, pits and shallow
scratches were detected. Deep color region in the gure may be
an oxide layer generated in the corrosive medium. Because of the
brittleness of the oxide layer, it could easily fall off by the external
force. Part of the oxides fell off from the friction system, another
part of the oxides were ground into small granular rolling in the
peeling area and caused abrasive wear.
SEM morphology of the electroless plating NiP alloy in 3.5 wt%
NaCl solution was shown in Fig. 8g. The delamination ake could
be observed from the SEM picture. Compared with NiWP alloys
in different heat treatment states, electroless plating NiP alloy
showed a higher wear rate, lower corrosion resistance and poorer
wear performance.

4. Discussion
4.1. Corrosion-wear behavior of NiWP alloy

1.0
400 heat-treated in deionized water
As-prepared in deionized water
400 heat-treated in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution
As-prepared in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution

Friction coefficient

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
0

2000

4000

6000

8000

Time (sec)
Fig. 7. The friction coefcient of NiWP alloys as-prepared and 400 1C heattreated in both deionized water and 3.5 wt% NaCl solution.

induced plastic deformation. The alloy in as-prepared state

showed deep plow marker and exhibited ne grooves along the
sliding direction in heat treatment state. This was caused by
hardness difference for alloy as-prepared and in heat treatment
state. Bright and smooth markers also meant no corrosion in
deionized water.
Fig. 8cf showed a worn surface morphology (50 times magnication) of the NiWP alloys as-prepared and 400 1C heattreated in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. Fig. 8c and d were corresponding
to alloys as-prepared and 400 1C heat-treated individually in 50

The deionized water was a little corrosive to NiWP alloy.

It acted as lubricant during the wear process and decreased the
wear loss of alloy. EDS detection results of worn NiWP alloy
in deionized water were shown in Table 4. Phosphorus element
disappeared after wear, which might be caused by the formation
of soluble phosphate lms. For as-prepared NiWP alloy, the
Ni/W atomic ratio increased from 7.0 to 10.49 before and after
wear. It was argued that W, which had a larger atomic size than Ni,
occupied Ni position in matrix and enlarged and distorted the Ni
lattice. The bonding force between Ni and W atoms were weaker
than Ni and Ni atoms. During the sliding wear process of NiWP
alloy, W atom was preferentially peeled off than Ni. Therefore the
Ni/W atomic ratio increased after wear. For NiWP alloys heat
treated at 400 1C, Ni/W atomic ratio reduced from 9.96 to 6.37
before and after corrosive wear. That was because Ni3P phase
formed for NiWP alloy during the process of 400 1C heat
treatment. During the wearcorrosion process, Ni3P phase was
more easily removed which resulted in W atoms enrichment on
the surface of alloys.
EDS results of NiWP alloy before and after worn in 3.5 wt%
NaCl solution were shown in Table 5. For NiWP alloy heat
treated at 400 1C, just as in deionized water, phosphorus element
in alloy disappeared and the Ni/W atomic ratio increased after
corrosive wear. Slight difference of O content was observed. The O
element disappeared in deionized water after worn and 4% of O
element was still preserved in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. This means
the slight wear loss happened in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. Wear rates
also conrmed this result. It was noted that for as-prepared Ni
WP alloy, Fe and P elements were observed on alloy surface after

18

F.J. He et al. / Wear 311 (2014) 1420

Fig. 8. Scanning electron micrograph of worn NiWP alloy surface (a) as-prepared and (b) 400 1C heat-treated in deionized water, as-prepared (c, e) and 400 1C heattreated (d, f) NiWP alloys at different magnications in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution; (g) worn surface of electress NiP alloy.

worn in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. This may be caused by mild

adhesive wear between alloy and GCr15 counter sample. Iron
and nickel have a high mutual solubility [22], Fe atom transferred
from the GCr15 steel ball surface to NiWP alloy surface. The

appearances of O element after corrosive wear also indicated a

mild adhesive wear occurring.
As described above, in deionized water, the wear mechanisms
of NiWP alloys were abrasive wear, both in the as-prepared and

F.J. He et al. / Wear 311 (2014) 1420

heat-treated states; but in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution, it showed a mild

adhesive wear mechanism in as-prepared state and abrasive wear
in 400 1C heat-treated state. It is because that after 400 1C heat
treatment the Ni4W phases and oxide formed. These second
phases increased the hardness of alloy and oxide at the surface,
prevented direct contact of alloy with couple in wear process. In
this case, the wear rate decreased and adhesive wear prevented.
Compared with Ni, the second phases had a higher potential and
hardness, which could accelerate the departure of Ni atoms. On
the other hand, when the treatment temperature was higher than
400 1C, the wear rate in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution became lower. For
NiWP alloy in as-prepared state, the main wear was caused by
corrosive wear; for the alloy in heat-treatment state, the main
wear was caused by abrasive wear. Following microcell reactions
may happen.
Anode reactions
Ni-Ni2 2e 
Ni2 H2O-NiO 2H
P 4H2O-PO34  8H 5e 
2PO34  3Ni2 -Ni3(PO4)2
W 3H2O-WO3 6H 6e 
Cathode reactions

2H 2e  -H2

4.2. Quantitative estimation of the synergy effect

As pointed out by researchers, the corrosionwear, in which the
material was subjected to wear and corrosion simultaneously, was
not simply the combined effect of both events. The synergy effect
could dominate the behavior of the material in corrosive environment. The weight loss of the NiWP alloy in corrosive wear

Table 4
EDS analysis of NiWP alloy worn surface in deionized water.
Sample

The element content before

wear (at%)
Ni

As-prepared
81.82
400 1C heat-treated 83.08

The element content

after wear (at%)

Fe Ni

11.61
8.34

6.56

2.67 5.07

91.51
86.44

Fe

8.49
13.56

19

behavior can be expressed as following [23,24]:

W total W wear W corr W

where, Wtotal is the total weight loss in corrosive wear; Wwear is

the pure wear weight loss (in solution without corrosion); Wcorr is
the pure corrosion weight loss; W is the synergy effect of wear
and corrosion. So
W W total  W wear W corr

The synergy effect of corrosive wear behavior of NiWP alloy

exposed 7 cm2 area in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution were calculated
according to Eq. (2) and results were shown in Table 6.
In 3.5 wt% NaCl corrosive solution, synergy effect of wear and
corrosion was observed. According to Table 6, the total wear loss
and pure wear loss of NiWP alloy in 400 1C heat-treated state
were lower than those of alloy in as-prepared state. The increased
hardness of NiWP alloy caused by the precipitation of second
phases was responsible for its improved wear resistance. Wtotal
and Wwear were in the same order of magnitude. Wcorr were lower
than Wtotal and Wwear three orders of magnitude. It meant that the
mechanical attack performed a predominant contribution to the
total corrosive wear. The synergy effect of NiWP alloy in 400 1C
heat-treated state was much lower than those in as-prepared
state. The ratios of W/Wtotal of NiWP alloy in heat-treated and
as-prepared state were 20.15%, and 55.0%, respectively. While the
ratios of Wwear/Wtotal of NiWP alloy in heat-treated and asprepared state were 79.31%, and 44.44%, respectively. According to
Table 3, the ratios of Wwear/Wtotal of NiP alloy in heat-treated and
as-prepared state were 78.8%, and 61.5%, respectively. From the
above discussion it implied that the second phases of the alloy
after heat-treated made a major inuence on synergy effect.
Synergistic attack of corrosion and wear can result in a higher
rate of material removal. During corrosive wear, plastic deformation makes the target surface more anodic and thus accelerates
material dissolution [25]. In the process of 400 1C heat treatment,
the precipitation of the second phases Ni4W increased the hardness of NiWP alloy. The higher hardness of alloy heat-treated at
400 1C resulted in a larger resistance to mechanical plowing in the
corrosive environment, while the softer as-prepared alloy had a
lower resistance to plowing which could make the alloy more
anodic and thus a higher synergy effect.
Usually the loss caused by combined action of corrosion and
wear, when a passive metal or alloy is subjected to sliding wear in
a corrosive environment, the total material removal rate differs
from that predicted by simply adding the wear rate measured in
the absence of corrosion and the corrosion rate observed in the
absence of wear. A good review of experimental observations
of the synergy effects between mechanical and chemical metal

Table 5
EDS analysis of NiWP alloy worn surface in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution.
Sample

As-prepared
400 1C heat-treated

The element content before wear (at%)

The element content after wear (at%)

Ni

Fe

Ni

Fe

81.82
83.08

11.61
8.34

6.56
2.67

5.07

84.22
79.76

8.51
16.24

1.24

2.54
4.00

3.48

Table 6
The synergy effect of NiWP alloy as-prepared and heat-treated in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution.
Sample

Wtotal (mg/h)

Wwear (mg/h)

Wcorr (mg/h)

W (mg/h)

W/Wtotal

Wwear/Wtotal (%)

Wcorr/Wtotal

As-prepared
400 1C heat-treated

3.15
1.45

1.4
1.15

1.66E  03
7.77E 03

1.7
0.29

55.50%
20.15%

44.44
79.31

5.27E  04
5.36E  03

20

F.J. He et al. / Wear 311 (2014) 1420

removal has been observed. The synergy effects play an important

role in attacking many industrial facilities when exposed to a
corrosive environment. As for NiWP alloy sliding wear in a
corrosive environment also follows the same general rules of
corrosionwear behavior. That is the higher hardness of materials
result in a lower synergy effect and a larger resistance to
mechanical plowing, when sliding wear in the corrosive environment. It is a better way to increase the hardness of materials used
in industry to improve the performance of engineering materials
when working in a corrosive environment.
5. Conclusions
(1). The main wear mechanism for NiWP alloy in deionized
water, both as-prepared and as-heat-treated, was abrasion.
The heat-treated alloy had the least wear in deionized water.
(2). Corrosion and adhesive wear were the main surface damage
mechanisms for the as-prepared alloy in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. For the heat-treated alloy, primarily abrasion with a
contribution from corrosion resulted in surface damage.
(3). Corrosionwear effects were prominent for both as-prepared
and heat-treated NiWP when tested in the saline solution.
The mechanical contribution to wear was predominant.
Second phases in the alloy, which raised its hardness, had a
major inuence on wearcorrosion synergy. After heat-treatment, the synergism seemed to be less important in wear
response than it was in the as-prepared condition.

Acknowledgments
Financial support for this work by the 11th ve-year National
Science and Technology Support Program of China (No. 2006BAE03B04) and the Hunan Nanolm New Material Technology Co.Ltd.. is
gratefully acknowledged.
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