Residual stresses in thick electrodeposits of a nickel-cobalt alloy

Some electroplated metals contain residual stresses which can cause warpage or premature failure of parts plated or electrofomed with these materials. Noticeably absent from the literature are residual-stress data for finished parts. Typically for plated or electroformed parts, residual stresses are determined independently on thin strips and then piece parts are plated. This research describes a technique which can be used to measure stress on finished parts. The method involves drilling a hole in the part and measuring the resulting change of strain in the vicinity of the hole. Viability of this technique was demonstrated by measuring the stress in a nickel-cobalt deposit plated on an aluminum cylinder. Two separate runs, one 50 deg removed from the other, provided almost identical results; stress was 160 MN/m² (23,200 psi). Two other runs in a region where plating was somewhat thinner provided slightly lower results probably because all boundary-condition requirements were not met. The computed residual-stress values compared quite favorably with independent rigid-strip measurements of 131 MN/m² (19,000 psi) obtained for the solution before and after plating of the cylinder.