Materials transfer in electro-spark deposition of TiCp/Ni metal-matrix composite coating on Cu substrate

Electro-spark deposition (ESD) is a microwelding process that utilizes short duration of electrical pulses to deposit electrode materials to a metallic substrate. In this paper, the material transferred from the depositing electrode to the substrate was investigated by producing one deposition each time. Titanium carbide particles/nickel metal-matrix composite (TiC p/Ni MMC) was used as the electrode to coat the copper (Cu) substrate in the …