Duplex treatment of 304 AISI stainless steel using rf plasma nitriding and carbonitriding

The Role of MW Plasma Treatment on the Corrosion Resistance of Stainless Steels

“…The depth profile of carbon and nitrogen ( Fig. 1) is consistent with other results [16][17][18] and suggests that the carbonitided surfaces of both steels consist of three sub-layers: a top coating layer where carbon and nitrogen remains almost on the same level, and two diffusion sub layer marked by a change in the concentration of structural components. Moreover, the cross sections indicate that alloying elements of steel segregate in the carbonitriding process to the grade extend.…”

“…The process is carried out by introducing nitriding and carburising species to plasma media to effect the simultaneous incorporation of nitrogen and carbon into the surface of austenitic stainless steels with the purpose to form a hybrid structure [6,13]. Some works have shown that the carbonitrided surfaces on austenitic stainless steels are characterized by two or three sub-layers: superficial top layer composed of amorphous or nanocrystalline carbonitrides and other two sublayers -composed of nitride and carbide phases mixed with polycrystalline solid solution phases [14][15][16][17][18]. The possibility of achievement of two different metastable solid solutions was reported.…”

“…According to Rahman et al [16,17] the carbonitriding process of stainless steels occurs through the simultaneous reactions between nitrogen and carbon plasma species and the substrate surface (deposition of hydrogenated carbonitride film mixed with carbon powdersuperfacial top layer) and diffusion of nitrogen and carbon underneath the top layer forming of solid solutions phases. The thickness of the top layer depends on treatment temperature and has approximately 2-3 µm at 490…”

An investigation on the microstructure, tribological and corrosion performance of AISI 321 stainless steel carbonitrided by RF plasma process

“…It has been observed that the thickness, mechanical, tribological and corrosion properties of the modified stainless steel layers after a plasma surface treatment depend on the plasma processing parameters as well as on the properties of the untreated substrates [14][15][16][17]. The modified layers on austenitic stainless steel were found to be composed of complex sub-layers and have a large influence on their surface properties [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Some authors [25][26][27][28] have found a top layer with amorphous/nanocrystalline structure when nitriding austenitic steel and others have denied it [8].…”

Properties of Carbonitrided Layer Formed on TiNbSn Shape Memory Alloy

“…The samples were carbo-nitrided using radio frequency (RF) plasma inductively coupled operated in continuous mode. Details of the system was used somewhere else [23,24].…”