Microstructural, corrosion and nanomechanical behaviour of ceramic coatings developed on magnesium AZ31 alloy by micro arc oxidation

Microstructural, corrosion and nanomechanical behaviour of micro arc oxidised (MAO) coating grown on magnesium AZ31B alloy was evaluated. Microstructural characterization of the coating was carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) followed by image analysis and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX). Linear polarization technique was used to evaluate the corrosion behaviour of the MAO coating. Further, nanoindentation was employed to evaluate nanohardness and Young's modulus of the MAO coating. The characteristic values of both the nanohardness and the Young's modulus were calculated through the application of the Weibull statistics. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.