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Effect of Treatment Time on the Microstructure of Austenitic Stainless Steel During Low-Temperature Liquid Nitrocarburizing

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Abstract

The effect of treatment time on the microstructure of AISI 304 austenitic stainless steel during liquid nitrocarburizing (LNC) at 703 K (430 °C) was investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Experimental results revealed that the modified layer was covered with the alloy surface and the modified layer depth increased extensively from 2 to 33.4 μm with increasing treatment time. SEM and XRD showed that when the 304 stainless steel sample was subjected to LNC at 703 K (430 °C) for less than 4 hours, the main phase of the modified layer was expanded austenite. When the treatment time was prolonged to 8 hours, the abundant expanded austenite was formed and it partially transformed into CrN and ferrite subsequently. With the increased treatment time, more and more CrN precipitate transformed in the overwhelming majority zone in the form of a typical dendritic structure in the nearby outer part treated for 40 hours. Still there was a single-phase layer of the expanded austenite between the CrN part and the inner substrate. TEM showed the expanded austenite decomposition into the CrN and ferrite after longtime treatment even at low temperature.

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  1. JEOL is a trademark of Japan Electron Optics Ltd., Tokyo.

  2. GATAN is a trademark of Gatan Inc., Warrendale, Pennsylvania.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are extremely grateful for the grants from the China Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201206245098) and the Sichuan Province Science and Technology Support Program (Grant No. 2014GZ0004), which provided financial support for this research work. One of the authors (JW) thanks Professor DeFu Luo, XiHua University (Chengdu, Sichuan, China), for the valuable discussions during the course of the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, P.R. China

    Jun Wang (Associate Professor) & Hongyuan Fan (Professor)

  2. State Key Lab of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, P.R. China

    Yuanhua Lin (Professor) & Dezhi Zeng (Associate Professor)

  3. Southwest Oil and Gasfield Company Research Institute of Natural Gas, Chengdu, 610023, P.R. China

    Qiang Zhang (Senior Engineer)

Authors
  1. Jun Wang
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  2. Yuanhua Lin
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  3. Qiang Zhang
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  4. Dezhi Zeng
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  5. Hongyuan Fan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Wang.

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Manuscript submitted November 6, 2012.

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Wang, J., Lin, Y., Zhang, Q. et al. Effect of Treatment Time on the Microstructure of Austenitic Stainless Steel During Low-Temperature Liquid Nitrocarburizing. Metall Mater Trans A 45, 4525–4534 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11661-014-2418-7

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