Identifier

etd-06262013-104843

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

The processes of surface treatments or surface modifications, more formally known as surface engineering, tailor the surfaces of engineering materials. The treatments are usually intended to change physical properties such as thermal or electrical conductivity, modify the surface dimensions, i.e. roughness, etc. A novel surface treatment method, Electrolytic Plasma Process (EPP), was developed for coating purposes, in its early developmental stage. In this work, the major effort is to avoid using any environmental hazardous chemical (coatings) and to extend such its application to some new fields. The general response of the substrate material under electrolytic plasma process was summarized including the morphology and its thermodynamic background, microstructural change and its physical process. Selection of operation parameters in direct current EPP was addressed with experimental results. The major component of this work covers the corrosion improvement on widely used structural materials and its electrochemical analysis. The improvement of corrosion resistance over a long time testing condition was confirmed on steel material. These improvements are closely related to the unique surface micro-features with EPP treatment. But the improvement in aqueous corrosion is material dependent. The adverse impact in corrosion was found on EPP treated aluminum alloy.

Date

2013

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Wahab, Muhammad

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.618

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