Plasma Carburizing and Nitrocarburizing for Composite Austenitic Stainless Steel with Tungsten Carbide Fabricated by LMD

Plasma Carburizing and Nitrocarburizing for Composite Austenitic Stainless Steel with Tungsten Carbide Fabricated by LMD

 

Shinichiro Adachi, Takuto Yamaguchi, Keigo Tanaka, Nobuhiro Ueda

(Osaka Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, Japan)

 

Plasma nitriding and carburizing at temperatures less than 450 °C for austenitic stainless steels can fabricate supersaturated solid solution of nitrogen or carbon in the face-centered cubic lattice at the surface, which is known as the S-phase. The S-phase can improve their wear resistance. In addition, the combined plasma nitriding and carburizing treatment has advantages of thickening the S-phase. LMD is applied to the fabrication of three-dimensional objects as additive manufacturing (AM). Stainless steels are well utilized for LMD, and the composite with tungsten carbide particles are also used as a method to strengthen those stainless steels. In this paper, the plasma carburizing and nitrocarburizing treatments were applied to AISI 316L stainless steel combined with tungsten carbide particles, and the formation process of the S-phase, and the properties of thickness, hardness, and wear resistance, were examined and discussed comparing with the plasma nitriding treatment.