• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.24-28
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• 2005

New post plasma nitriding can achieve a high uniformity that have been difficult in DC nitriding and have a high productivity comparable to gas nitriding. However, it has not a enough high nitriding potential for a rapid nitriding, because surface activation or ion etching in the general plasma nitriding cannot be expected. Thus, in this study, the effects of pre-treatments with oxidation and reduction gas have been investigated to improve the nitriding kinetics of post plasma nitriding. An effective pre-treatment consisting of oxidation and reduction resulted in the increase of surface energy of STD 11. This induced the surface hardness and the effective nitriding depth of STD 11. It is thought that the increase of the surface energy and the surface area with pre-treatment promote the nucleation of nitriding layer.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.337-345
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• 2000

As a case hardening process for stainless steels, nitriding is more preferred and widely used than carburizing which deterioates corrosion resistance severely. In order to add the nitrogen into the stainless steels, passive film on the surface must be removed effectively before nitriding. Conventional gas nitriding process is performed in the temperature range of 500 to $600^{\circ}C$ with $NH_3$ gas, which often leads to sensitization of stainless steels. In this study, we tried to activate passive film of austenitic stainless steels by heating at low pressure. ($900^{\circ}C$, $5{\times}10^{-2}$ Torr.) Nitriding was performed at the solution treatment temperature of $1100^{\circ}C$ with nitrogen molecules instead of $NH_3$ gas. An attainable nitrogen content in a case depends on the nitrogen gas pressure at constant nitriding temperature. A case depth is proportional to the square root of solution time, which suggests that inward diffusion of nitrogen follows the Fick's 2nd law. Surface nitrogen atoms are dissolved as interstitial solutes, or precipitated in the form of MN, $M_2N$ nitrides, which increase the case hardeness. Dissolved nitrogen in the case enhances the cavitation resistance of austenitic stainless steels dramatically.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.225-234
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• 2010

Salt bath nitriding, which has been developed recently by domestic company, is an emerging ecofriendly surface treatment. The salt bath nitriding is accompanied by the electrolysis process in the pretreatment step, and this whole processis called Pseudo-Electrolysised Salt bath Nitriding (PESN). The PESN creates only $NH_3$ and non-toxic salts without harmful $CN^{-}$ or toxic gas such as that found in previous salt bath nitriding. In general, ion nitriding and gas nitriding create high hardness and a strong brittle white layer on the surface. However, the PESN shows a thin white and gray layer. The PESN was applied to the defense material, 3%Cr-Mo-V steel, to study the surface characteristics at $480^{\circ}C$, $530^{\circ}C$, and $580^{\circ}C$ for 4 hrs, 20 hrs, 40 hrs, and 60 hrs of nitriding time condition. As a result, the best nitriding layer was found at $530^{\circ}C$ for 40 hrs. If we improve corrosion resistance and nitriding layer depth, the PESN will be able to be applied to the defense industry parts.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.216-221
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• 2001

In this study, the effects of nitriding methods and times on the fatigue strength of SACM 645 steel were investigated. The rotary bending tests were carried out to obtain and compare the fatigue strengths of plasma ion nitrided specimens and gas nitride specimen. The 70 hr. gas nitrided specimen had the highest fatigue strength of 1.05$\times$$10^3$ MPa over the 40 hr., 70 hr. and 90 hr. plasma ion nitrided specimens, which had the fatigue strength of 3.48$\times$$10^2$, 4.57$\times$$10^2$ and 4.64$\times$$10^2$ respectively. Also, the microhardness tests were conducted to measure the effective case depths. The plasma ion nitrided specimens showed much higher surface hardness values than the gas nitrided specimen overall.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.278-282
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• 2004

Effect of pre-treatment on the gas nitriding process of austenitic stainless steels has been investigated and the following results were obtained. Minimum pre-treatment time was decreased to 5min with increasing treatment temperature from $200^{\circ}C$ to $600^{\circ}C$. Surface activation effect by the pre-treatment was maintained in the air up to holding time of 64hr, judging from the analysis result of gas nitrided specimens. The Depth of nitrided layer of STS 304 and 316 stainless steels were ranged from $5{\mu}m$ to $90{\mu}m$ at $440^{\circ}C{\sim}600^{\circ}C$. The X-ray diffraction intensity for austenitic stainless steels were increases as nitriding temperature from $440^{\circ}C$ to $600^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.33-39
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• 2014

Feathering spindle is one of the critical parts of the rotor system in the Smart Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(SUAV) that it was manufactured with special material, Maraging C300. During the initial ground and tie-down flight tests of the SUAV, surface of the feathering spindle contacting to the needle-roller bearings showed excessive wear and dent due to high vibrating loads transferred from the rotating blades. Gas nitriding process was applied to the bearing contact surface of the feathering spindle to increase surface hardness so as to improve the surface defects. This paper briefly presents the gas nitriding process adopted and the spindle quality improvements including wear and corrosion resistance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.318-327
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• 1994

According to conventional nitriding of tool steels, it was very difficult to produce a high surface hardness. This study has been conducted to investigate the influence of initial structures on the nitriding characteristics of tool steels in gas-nitrided for the improvement in surface hardness. The specimens (SACM645, STD61 steels) have been quenching and tempering at various temperature and then gas-nitrided for 30, 45 and 60hr at 500, 530 and $550^{\circ}C$ respectively in gasatmosphere of 30%$NH_3-70%N_2$ As hardness of initial structure was higher, the nitriding layer was deeper and hardness of the nitriding layer was higher. Deeper nitriding layers was due to higher diffusion rate by fine initial microstructure. Also the reason of high surface hardness was associated with formation of dispersed fine carbonitrides of nitrides.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.268-274
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• 1997

Characteristics of plasma nitriding and nitrocarburizing for steam treated sintered steels were studied. Fe-0.8%C powder containing Ni, Cu were sintered at 112$0^{\circ}C$ and steamed at 52$0^{\circ}C$. Temperature of plasma nitriding and nitrocarburizing was varied from 50$0^{\circ}C$ to $600^{\circ}C$. Gas mixture of nitriding was set at $N_2$ : $H_2$ =80:20 (vol.%), but $CH_4gas$ was added 1~2 vol.% for nitrocarburizing. Steam treatment for sintered steels brought not only the formation of oxide layer but also decarburizing near the surface. Decrease in hardness near the surface resulted from the formation of ferrite due to decarburizing. Thus, the low hardness was recovered not with plasma nitriding but with plasma nitrocarburixing. Wear resistance properties of steamed specimens and ni-trocarburized specimens were better than those of nitrided specimens according to the pin-on-disk wear test. On the other hand, the fatigue life of steamed specimen was shorter than that of nitrocaiburized specimen.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.262-267
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• 2008

Plasma immersion ion beam (PIIB) nitriding process is an environmentally benign and cost-effective process, and offers the potential of producing high dose of nitrogen ions in a way of simple, fast and economic technique for the high plasma flux treatment of large surface area with nitrogen ion source gas. In this report PIIB nitriding technique was used for nitriding on austenite stainless steel of AISI304 with plasma treatment at $250{\sim}500^{\circ}C$ for 4 hours, and with the working gas pressure of $2.67{\times}10^{-1}$ Pa in vacuum condition. This PIIB process might prove the advantage of the low energy high flux of ion bombardment and enhance the tribological or mechanical properties of austenite stainless steel by nitriding, Furthermore, PIIB showed a useful surface modification technique for the nitriding an irregularly shaped three dimensional workpiece of austenite stainless steel and for the improvement of surface properties of AISI 304, such as hardness and strength

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.258-267
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• 1998

For the purpose of investigating the growth characteristics and composition of nitrides, gas nitridings of the austenitic stainless steel, STR 36 heat resisting steel and martensitic stainless steel are investigated at the temperature ranges between $500^{\circ}C$ and $675^{\circ}C$ for 5hours under the $75%NH_3+5%CO_2+20%$Air gas atmosphere. When gas nitriding the austentic stainless steel and STR 36 heat resisting alloy, the abnormal growth behavior of compound layer deviating from the conventional diffusion law with increasing temperature appears, while the compound layer of martensitic stainless steel shows the normal diffusional growth behavior. From the examination of microstructure, X-ray diffraction and hardness test, it is concluded that the abnormal growth behavior of compound layer with increasing temperature induces from the formation and dissolution of CrN and ${\gamma}^{\prime}-Fe_4N$ at the nitriding temperature ranges of $600{\sim}650^{\circ}C$.