This article examines a technology used for surface-hardening -carbonitriding. Carbonitriding reduces the amount of labor involved in making equipment parts while also making them resistant to corrosion. This technology alleviates the wear of carbon-steel disks on a friction machine by a factor of 20-40 and results in a proportionate decrease in the wear of non-hardened shoes mated with the disks. The use of carbonitriding results in a manyfold reduction in the consumption of spare parts for metallurgical equipment. Among the important consequences of the decrease in the wear of parts are a reduction in repair costs, a decrease in the frequency of equipment repairs, and the generation of additional profi t due to the accompanying increase in the equipment's accrued operating time.The growth of industry is being accompanied by increases in the loads on the working elements and parts of machines and equipment, which is requiring the use of stronger materials to make those components. Once the strength problem is resolved, the main cause of equipment failure becomes not breakage of the parts but wear of the joints; roughly 80% of all equipment malfunctions are now due to wear. During the 19th Century, wear was reduced by the use of cover plates. In the 20th Century, industry began to use methods that involve hardening of the surface of parts. Traditional hardening methods were used at fi rst: galvanizing, chrome-plating, surface cementation. Now, the methods which are being used for hardening are hard-facing, sputtering, surface quenching (gas-fl ame, HFC, electrocontact, plasma, laser, and other types of surface quenching), chemico-thermal treatment (nitriding, etc.), and surface deformation. The use of these methods has slowed wear, lengthened the periods between repairs to machines, and made them more reliable by eliminating superfl uous elements (cover plates and gap control devices).During the 1980s, the widespread use of hardening techniques led to the advent of a new generation of machines and equipment that acquired the name "repair-free" due to their long service life. The business strategy of machinery manufacturers has changed over the last 2-3 decades. They have shortened product warranties in order to turn over orders more quickly, although the prices for spare parts are still high. Given this situation, the ongoing campaign to replace foreign-made equipment with Russian equipment should proceed with the use of methods that strengthen its components and thus make the equipment more durable.Despite the variety of methods for hardening surfaces, their use still remains problematic. As a result, many of the parts of metallurgical equipment are not given a hardening treatment, undergo rapid wear, and end up causing the frequent and costly idling of equipment for repairs. Making the existing hardening methods easier to use is an important goal. The use of plasma hardening [1] is one example of progress in this area. In the present investigation, we examine a technology developed to permit the broad use of ac...
