• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.78-84
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• 2012

Mold may experience deterioration of molding quality as the abrasion of mold occurring due to friction between mold and molded product works as allowance in the course of press process. Therefore, to improve the wear-resistance of mold, methods like nitriding, carburizing, flame and induction surface hardening treatment etc have been applied. However, as such methods are accompanied by problems like shape limitation or product deformation etc, laser surface treatment technology is under review as surface treatment method that can solve such problems. Therefore, in this study, mold material cast iron was surface-treated by using high power diode laser. In previous report 1 and report 2, the heat treatment characteristics were compared by the differences of die materials and shapes, then this paper observed microstructure by using optical microscope and scanning electronic microscope to analyze the structural difference of hardened zone, interface area and base metal after heat treatment. And the structural condition was grasped through EDS. As a result of microstructure, hardened zone showed formation of acicular martensite.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.105-112
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• 2013

The microstructural changes of Fe-20Mn-12Cr-1Cu alloy have been studied during high temperature gas nitriding (HTGN) at the range of $1000^{\circ}C{\sim}1150^{\circ}C$ in an atmosphere of nitrogen gas. The mixed microstructure of austenite and ${\varepsilon}$-martensite of as-received alloy was changed to austenite single phase after HTGN treatment at the nitrogen-permeated surface layer, however the interior region that was not affected nitrogen permeation remained the structure of austenite and ${\varepsilon}$-martensite. With raising the HTGN treatment temperature, the concentration and permeation depth of nitrogen, which is known as the austenite stabilizing element, were increased. Accordingly, the depth of austenite single phase region was increased. The outmost surface of HTGN treated alloy at $1000^{\circ}C$ appeared Cr nitride. And this was in good agreement with the thermodynamically calculated phase diagram. The grain growth was delayed after HTGN treatment temperature ranges of $1000^{\circ}C{\sim}1100^{\circ}C$ due to the grain boundary precipitates. For the HTGN treatment temperature of $1150^{\circ}C$, the fine grain region was shown at the near surface due to the grain boundary precipitates, however, owing to the depletion of grain boundary precipitates, coarse grain was appeared at the depth far from the surface. This depletion may come from the strong affinity between nitrogen and substitutional element of Al and Ti leading the diffusion of these elements from interior to surface. Because of the nitrogen dissolution at the nitrogen-permeated surface layer by HTGN treatment, the surface hardness was increased above 150 Hv compared to the interior region that was consisted with the mixed microstructure of austenite and ${\varepsilon}$-martensite.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.194-200
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• 2014

Metallic Cr film coatings of $1.2{\mu}m$ thickness were prepared by DC magnetron sputter deposition method on c-plane sapphire substrates. The thin Cr films were ammoniated during horizontal furnace thermal annealing for 10-240 min in $NH_3$ gas flow conditions between 400 and $900^{\circ}C$. After annealing, changes in the crystal phase and chemical constituents of the films were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface analysis. Nitridation of the metallic Cr films begins at $500^{\circ}C$ and with further increases in annealing temperature not only chromium nitrides ($Cr_2N$ and CrN) but also chromium oxide ($Cr_2O_3$) was detected. The oxygen in the films originated from contamination during the film formation. With further increase of temperature above $800^{\circ}C$, the nitrogen species were sufficiently supplied to the film's surface and transformed to the single-phase of CrN. However, the CrN phase was only available in a very small process window owing to the oxygen contamination during the sputter deposition. From the XPS analysis, the atomic concentration of oxygen in the as-deposited film was about 40 at% and decreased to the value of 15 at% with increase in annealing temperature up to $900^{\circ}C$, while the nitrogen concentration was increased to 42 at%.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.195-201
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• 1997

The present paper describes the effect of dry mixed grinding on kaolinite-aluminum trihydroxide mixture with a planetary ball mill before sintering and its influence on mullite formation during sintering. The size reduction of the mixture is market in the early stage of grinding and the obtained fine particles agglomerate subsequently with an increase of grinding time. The crystal structure of the mixture is collapsed easily into an amorphous one by planetary ball milling, of which amount increases with an increase of grinding time. Only mullite phase except for anatase as an inherent impurity in kaolinite appeared in the sintered body of the mixtures with mixed grinding as relatively lower temperature 1523K, while corundum, cristobalite, and Al-Si spinel phases, besides mullite were formed in the sintered body of the mixture without mixed grinding. Therefore, the mixed grinding treatment is very effective to improve the homogeneous mixing and disp-ersion of the mixture of raw materials on a micro scale and to decrease the thermal decomposition tem-perature by crystal structure change of them so as to obatin direct preparation of mullite with high purity at relatively low temperature.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.215-223
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• 1992

This study has been performed to investigate into some effects of temperature, gas mixing ratio and time on the optical microstructure, hardness and wear characteristics of medium carbon alloy steel treated by plasma nitriding. The results obtained from the experiment are summarized as follows: (1) Optical micrographs of AISI 4140 steel plasma-nitrided by the double stage technique have revealed that the nitrided layer is composed of the compound layer and the diffusion layer. The variation in temperature at the first stage gives effects, on the formation of compound layer and the growth rate is shown to be relatively fast at $460^{\circ}C$. (2) The thickness of compound layer has been found to increase with increasing nitrogen percentage in the gas mixture and the holding time. It is therefore recommended that a shorter holding time and a lower nitrogen percentage are more effective to produce a tougher compound layer and a diffusion layer only. (3) X-ray diffraction analysis for AISI 4140 steel has shown that the compound layer consist of ${\gamma}^{\prime}-Fe_4N$ and ${\alpha}-Fe$ and that tough compound layer diffustion layer only can be obtained by the double stage plasmanitriding process. (4) There is also a tendency that the total hardened layer depth increases with increasing temperature, time and nitrogen percentage in the first stage during the double stage plasma nitriding. (5) The wear resistance of plasma nitrided specimens has been found thobe considerably increased compared to the untreated specimens and the amount of increment has appeared to increase further with increasing nitriding temperature, holding time and notrogen percentage of gas mixture in the first stage treatment.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.116-121
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• 2009

The 2-step low temperature plasma processes (the combined carburizing and post-nitriding) offer the increase of both surface hardness and thickness of hardened layer and corrosion resistance than the individually processed low temperature nitriding and low temperature carburizing techniques. The 2-step low temperature plasma processes were carried out for improving both the surface hardness and corrosion resistance of AISI 316L stainless steel. The influence of gas compositions on the surface properties during nitriding step were investigated. The expanded austenite (${\gamma}_N$) was formed on all of the treated surface. The thickness of ${\gamma}_N$ and concentration of N on the surface increased with increasing both nitrogen gas and Ar gas levels in the atmosphere. The thickness of ${\gamma}_N$ increased up to about $20{\mu}m$ and the thickness of entire hardened layer was determined to be about $40{\mu}m$. The surface hardness was independent of nitrogen and Ar gas contents and reached up to about 1200 $HV_{0.1}$ which is about 5 times higher than that of untreated sample (250 $HV_{0.1}$). The corrosion resistance in 2-step low temperature plasma processed austenitic stainless steels was also much enhanced than that in the untreated austenitic stainless steels due to a high concentration of N on the surface.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.99-99
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• 2008

To grow the large diameter GaN with high structure and optical quality has been obtained by hydride vapor phase epitaxy(HVPE) method. In addition to the nitridation of $Al_2O_3$ substrate, we also developed a "step-growth process" to reduce or to eliminate the bowing of the GaN substrate caused by thermal mismatch during cool down after growth. The as-grown 380um thickness and 75mm diameter GaN layer was separated from the sapphire substrate by laser-induced lift-off process at $600^{\circ}C$. A problem with the free-standing wafer is the typically large bowing of such a wafer, due to the built in the defect concentration near GaN-sapphire interface. A polished G-surface of the GaN substrate were characterized by room temperature Double crystal X-ray diffraction (DCXRD), photoluminescence(PL) measurement, giving rise to the full-width at half maximum(FWHM) of the rocking curve of about 107 arcsec and dislocation density of $6.2\times10^6/cm^2$.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.971-976
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• 2008

Water pollution by ammonium ion and nitrate is a common and growing problem in the ecosystem. Process of biological removal consists of nitrification and denitrification by bacteria. Ammonium is oxidized generally to nitrate by nitrification and nitrate is reduced to dinitrogen gas in the subsequent denitrification process. Although natural zeolite is well known for its ability to preferentially remove ammonium, it is not sufficiently removing ammonium ion and nitrate by adsorption. In order to overcome this problem, a method of biological removal with zeolite is used for simultaneous removal of ammonium and nitrate. As a result, in case of shaking culture with 1% seed and passing through zeolite column, the process revealed that ammonium ion could be removed completely after 14 hours. The removal of nitrate using columns with naturally adsorbed bacteria onto zeolite reached approximately 100% after 4 hours.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.699-705
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• 1995

Effect of the grain boundary phases in Si$_3$N$_4$ ceramics on the fracture tonghness has been investigated. The Si$_3$N$_4$-Y$_2$O$_3$-SiO$_2$, (YS) and Si$_3$N$_4$-Y$_2$O$_3$-Al$_2$O$_3$(YA) systems were Can/HIP treated at 1750$^{\circ}C$ and then heat-treated at 1800∼2000$^{\circ}C$. The fracture toughness of the YA system, the grain boundary phase was only glass phase after heat-treatement, was increased. That of the YS system, however, the grain boundary phase was changed from crystalline and glass to glass phase after the heat -treatement above 1900$^{\circ}C$, was abruptly decreased. The reason of the sudden drop of the fracture toughness of the YS system was believed that the change of the grain boundary phases from crystalline and glass to glass phase effected un the fracture behavior.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.124-128
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• 2008

The nitride layer was formed on Ti and Ti-10 wt.%Ta-10 wt.%Nb alloy by a plasma nitriding method. Temperature was selected as the main experimental parameter for plasma nitriding. XRD, EDX, and hardness test were employed to analyze the evolution and material properties of the layer. The SEM observation of TiN nitride layer revealed that the thickness of nitride layer tended to increase with increasing temperature. ${\delta}-TiN$, ${\varepsilon}-Ti_{2}N$ and ${\alpha}-Ti$ phases were detected by XRD analysis and the preferred orientation of TiN nitride layer was obviously observed at (220) plane with increasing temperature. From XRD analysis after step polishing the nitride specimens treated at $850^{\circ}C$, as polishing from the surface, TiN and $Ti_{2}N$ phases decreased gradually. After polishing the surface by $4{\um}m$, a small amount of $Ti_{2}N$ and ${\alpha}-Ti$ phases were observed. The adhesive strength test result indicated that adhesive strength increased with increasing temperature.