Abstract
The aim of this research is to analyze the corrosion fatigue behaviour of the AISI 1045 steel for two different surface treatments (i.e., single ball burnishing and a duplex treatment combining ball burnishing with an electroless Ni-B coating). The tests were carried out in order to study the fatigue performance both in air and in a 5%NaCl solution under rotating bending condition (R = -1). Corrosion fatigue tests were conducted at alternating stress levels ranging between 240 and 450 MPa. The results indicated that the 5%NaCl environment reduced the fatigue life drastically, but the ball burnishing was found to increase the corrosion fatigue life. Also, the duplex treatment improved the corrosion fatigue resistance compared to the case of the ball burnishing alone. The surface morphologies after corrosion fatigue tests were studied by using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Key words
corrosion fatigue, electroless nickel-boron (Ni-B) coating, ball burnishing treatment

Full text (304 KB)