A directly strain measuring method for electroplated nickel micro-tensile test

In order to avoid the post-processing in micro-tensile tests, a directly strain measuring method is presented in this paper. The nickel tensile test specimen was electroplated in Watts solution under certain conditions. The measured Young’s modulus, ultimate tensile strength and elongation are 171.5 GPa, 2.18 GPa and 13.8%, respectively. By comparing these results to that obtained by the traditional method, this new approach has been proved reliable. Furthermore, the mean grain size of the nickel specimen measured by TEM images is about 160 nm with wide distribution. The XRD results show that nickel thin film in our experiment has no preferred orientation in the growth direction. The dimple rupture with small microvoids has been observed after the fracture of specimen.