Effects of Nickel Plating on Interference Fit between Medium Carbon Steel and Copper–Zinc Alloy Parts

Studies on load capacity enhancement for an interference fit mainly focused on the essential coupling material pair of steel–steel parts. With more complex requirements in technical assemblies, more notable cases of material pairs are applied in interference fits. Hence, it is crucial to highlight the variations across-coupling scenarios in order to identify a workable approach for load capacity augmentation. The goal of this study is to examine how nickel plating affects the interference fit between steel and brass assembly parts. The experiments in this research focus on comparing the load capacity of plated and non-plated specimens by evaluating the extraction force on a compression machine. The fit parameters are measured with a coordinate measuring machine and contact surface profiler. Some microscopic observations are made to confirm the phenomena of this coupling case. The axial extraction tests determined that the plated fits show an increase in axial force limits of around 20% in comparison with the non-plated ones. There are also some significant improvements in the plated shaft surface properties, which reduce the physical adhesions between the shaft and hub. These results confirm the possibility of reusing the plated assembly parts, which gives highly economic and environmental advantages.