Growth in solution of hooked Ni–Fe fibers by oriented rotation and attachment approaches

Abstract

Inspired by the curved branches of fractal trees, hooked Ni–Fe fibers were grown in situ in Ni–Fe composite coatings on a spheroidal graphite cast iron substrate. These hooked Ni–Fe fibers exhibited inclination angles of about 39°, which was in accordance with the theoretical prediction of 37°. Ni–Fe nanostructures self-assembled to form dendrites and evolved into hooked fibers by an oriented attachment reaction. The orientation rotation of Ni–Fe nanostructures played an important role in the growth of curved hooked Ni–Fe fibers. During sliding wear tests, the volume loss of the spheroidal graphite cast iron substrate was 2.2 times as large as that of the Ni–Fe coating reinforced by hooked fibers. The good load-transferring ability of hooked Ni–Fe fibers led to an improvement in their wear properties during wear tests.

Keywords

metal fiber / fiber growth / oriented / attachments / composite coatings / self assembly / nanostructures

References

[1] Zhou B.L. Some progress in the biomimetic study of composite materials. Mater. Chem. Phys., 1996, 45(2): 114.

[2] Soetens T., Van Gysel A., Matthys S., Taerwe L. A semi-analytical model to predict the pull-out behaviour of inclined hooked-end steel fibres. Construct. Build. Mater., 2013, 43, 253.

[3] Zeng C.F., Li P., Zhang L.X. Preparation of magnetic nickel hollow fibers with a trilobe structure using cellulose acetate fibers as templates. Appl. Surf. Sci., 2013, 266, 214.

[4] Gong C.H., Zhang J.W., Zhang X.F., Yu L.G., Zhang P.Y., Wu Z.S., Zhang Z.J. Strategy for ultrafine Ni fibers and investigation of the electromagnetic characteristics. J. Phys. Chem. C, 2010, 114(22): 10101.

[5] Penn R.L., Banfield J.F. Imperfect oriented attachment: dislocation generation in defect-free nanocrystals. Science, 1998, 281(5379): 969.

[6] Cho K.S., Talapin D.V., Gaschler W., Murray C.B. Designing PbSe nanowires and nanorings through oriented attachment of nanoparticles. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005, 127(19): 7140.

[7] Gong M.G., Kirkeminde A., Ren S.Q. Symmetry-defying iron pyrite (FeS2) nanocrystals through oriented attachment. Sci. Rep., 2013, 3, 1.

[8] Liu F., Zhang Y. In-situ growth of carbon nanotubes from Ni-based coatings and their wear properties. Diamond Relat. Mater., 2012, 25, 144.

[9] Lin M.B., Wang C.J., Volinsky A.A. Isothermal and thermal cycling oxidation of hot-dip aluminide coating on flake/spheroidal graphite cast iron. Surf. Coat. Technol., 2011, 206(7): 1595.

[10] He Z.Y., Zhao J.X., Xu Z. Plasma surface alloying of spheroidal graphite iron. Surf. Coat. Technol., 2000, 131(1-3): 574.

[11] Lv W.Q., He W.D., Wang X.N., Niu Y.H., Cao H.Q., Dickerson J.H., Wang Z.G. Understanding the oriented-attachment growth of nanocrystals from an energy point of view: a review. Nanoscale, 2014, 6(5): 2531.

[12] Ye W.C., Shen C.M., Tian J.F., Wang C.M., Hui C., Gao H.J. Controllable growth of silver nanostructures by a simple replacement reaction and their SERS studies. Solid State Sci., 2009, 11(6): 1088.

[13] Porter D.A., Easterling K.E. Phase Transformations in Metals and Alloys, 1981, Berkshire, England, Van Nostrand Reinhold (UK) Co. Ltd.

[14] Kitahara H., Ueji R., Tsuji N., Minamino Y. Crystallographic features of lath martensite in low-carbon steel. Acta Metall., 2006, 54(5): 1279.

[15] Zhang X.M., Aeby-Gautier E., Simon A. Orientation relationships of deformation-induced martensite in Fe-Ni-C alloys. Acta Metall., 1989, 37(2): 487.