SETTING UP OF

ELECTROPLATING UNIT FOR

THE FABRICATION OF
AGRICULTURAL TOOLS

TEAM MEMBERS:1. KUMAR SAHEB (1PI10ME061)

2. MANOJ KUMAR RAJPUT(1PI10ME065)
3. APOORVA KUMAR(1PI10ME024)

PROJECT GUIDE:
Prof C.S RAMESH

SYNOPSIS
1. The objective is to improve the wear and corrosion resistance of
Combine Harvester Blades with the help of Electroplating process.
2. The Combine harvester is a machine that performs three
operations-reaping, threshing and winnowing into a single
process.
3.

While operating

4. The conventional material used to make harvester blade is Mn65

steel having constituent as Mn-65%,C-7%,Si-2.5%,P0.25%,S-0.03% respectively.
5. Study shows that efficiency and life of blades reduces due to
corrosion wear, abrasion wear and impact wear.
6. Various techniques like thermal spray and arc coating has been
adopted to reduce the above mentioned problems but these
techniques results in microstructure realignment and
7. In the present context well be looking to minimize the wear
losses by developing a setup for fabrication of harvester blades
thereby doing electroplating of Ni/SiC composite on harvester
blades.
8. Electroplating is a process of plating one metal onto another by
passing electric current.

Basic Electroplating setup

8. Nickel Electroplating is a technique of electroplating a thin layer of

nickel onto a metal object. Nickel layer can be decorative, provide
corrosion resistance, wear resistance.

Material used
Material name

Nickel

Melting point

1453 oC

Boiling Point

2730 oC

Specific Gravity

8.9

Atomic Number

28

Atomic Weight

58.71

Nickel plating is widely used in agriculture,industrial, military,

transport, aerospace, marine, architectural, food processing, medical
equipment and chemical plants.
About 65% of the produced nickel is used to manufacture
stainless steel, 20% is used in non ferrous alloys and 9% used in
electronics applications.

Profile view
of the
experimental

Top view of the

experimental
harvester blades

An animation of how a combine harvester

works
.

Tests performed over the blades

before electroplating :.

1. Chemical composition test

:-

This test was performed using optical emission spectrometry.

Optical emission spectrometry involves applying electrical

energy in the form of spark generated between an electrode
and a metal sample, whereby the vaporized atoms are brought
to a high energy state within a so-called discharge plasma.
These excited atoms and ions in the discharge plasma create a
unique emission spectrum specific to each element, as shown
at right. Thus, a single element generates numerous
characteristic emission spectral lines.
Therefore, the light generated by the discharge can be said to
be a collection of the spectral lines generated by the elements
in the sample. This light is split by a diffraction grating to
extract the emission spectrum for the target elements. The
intensity of each emission spectrum depends on the
concentration of the element in the sample. Detectors
(photomultiplier tubes) measure the presence or absence or
presence of the spectrum extracted for each element and the
intensity of the spectrum to perform qualitative and
quantitative analysis of the elements.

Result of composition
test in percent by
weight
carbon
0.261
silicon

0.28

manganese

1.19

phosphorous

0.012

Sulpher

0.009

Chromium

0.32

nickel

0.23

molybdenum

0.07

2. Micro vicker hardness test

Material

Value

f
316L stainless steel

140HV30

347Lstainless steel

180HV30

Carbon steel

55120HV5

Iron

3080HV5

Martensite

1000HV

Diamond

10000HV

Hardness test result

Trial 1

478

Trial 2

486

Trial 3

482

Average value

482

Next step-electroplating

List of chemicals to be used

chemicals

Amount

Nickel sulfamate

100 g/L

Ferrous sulphate

5 g/L

Dimethyl formamide

1L

Silicon Carbide

Procedure to be followed
1. Insertion of agitator in electroplating bath. The role of agitator is
to allow slow and uniform deposition of Ni/SiC on the specimen
so that Ni/SiC layer is strong enough to handle wear test.
2. Preparation of electroplating solution as per the chemical ratio
mentioned above.

Thank
you