Cathodic Cage Plasma Pre-treatment of TiN-Coated AISI-304 Stainless Steel for Enhancement of Mechanical Strength and Wear Resistance

Journal Article · Tue Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2019 · Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/S11665-018-3780-1· OSTI ID:22971035

Raza, H. A.; Shafiq, M. ^[1]; Naeem, M. ^[2]; Díaz-Guillén, J. C. ^[3]; Lopez-Badillo, C. M. ^[4]

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1. Quaid-I-Azam University, Department of Physics (Pakistan)
2. Women University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Department of Physics (Pakistan)
3. CONACYT, Corporación Mexicana de Investigación en Materiales (Mexico)
4. Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas (Mexico)

Although austenitic stainless steels (ASSs) are known for their superior corrosion resistance properties, the use of such materials in motion contact parts is limited due to their low wear resistance. Previous studies reveal that titanium nitride (TiN) coating of ASS significantly improves its hardness and surface morphology but not the wear resistance due to weak interfacing with the substrate. Since plasma nitriding is a flexible and multifunctional case-hardening process, an attempt was made to improve the wear resistance of TiN-coated AISI-304 stainless steel by subjecting it to pre-treatment by pulsed DC cathodic cage plasma nitriding (CCPN) in the abnormal glow region. The hardness of the TiN-coated steel samples (with and without CCPN pre-treatment) was measured using Vickers micro-hardness tester. This test revealed maximum hardness of 2284 HV after plasma treatment of TiN-coated steel. The untreated TiN-coated steel exhibited 10.6 times lower hardness than the plasma pre-treated TiN-coated steel (CCPN-TiN). XRD analysis of the untreated TiN-coated steel showed strong diffraction peaks of TiN (311) and (400) in the spectrum, whereas plasma pre-treated sample contained dominant peaks of TiN (111), (200) and (220). The ball-on-disk wear tester was used to investigate the wear behavior of the samples. Very small wear rate and friction coefficient were reported for CCPN-TiN-coated steel. The observed low wear rate was probably due to the development of a subsurface (i.e., nitrided surface) on TiN-coated steel during CCPN pre-treatment.

• OSTI ID: 22971035
• Journal Information: Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance, Journal Name: Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 28; ISSN 1059-9495; ISSN JMEPEG
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CORROSION RESISTANCE
FRICTION FACTOR
HARDENING
HARDNESS
PLASMA
STAINLESS STEEL-304
TIN
TITANIUM NITRIDES
WEAR RESISTANCE
X-RAY DIFFRACTION