Sliding wear behaviour of zinc–iron alloy electrodeposits

Using a pin-on-disc wear apparatus, the wear behaviour of a zinc and three zinc–iron electrodeposited coatings, with different iron content, was studied. The friction coefficient of the coatings against hardened steel spheres was observed to decrease with increasing iron content in the coatings. The most important wear mechanism of the above coatings was noted to be extensive plastic deformation and shearing of the coating, due to the ploughing action of the much harder steel spheres. The wear volume of the zinc coating was much higher than the wear volumes of the zinc–iron coatings, which had higher hardness values and were thus more resistant to plastic deformation.