Austenitic stainless steels cannot be conventionally nitrided at temperatures near 550°C due to the intense precipitation of chromium nitrides in the diffusion zone. The precipitation of chromium nitrides increases the hardness but severely impairs corrosion resistance. Plasma nitriding allows introducing nitrogen in the steel at temperatures below 450°C, forming pre-dominantly expanded austenite (gN), with a crystalline structure best represented by a special triclinic lattice, with a very high nitrogen atomic concentration promoting high compressive residual stresses at the surface, increasing substrate hardness from 4 GPa up to 14 GPa on the nitrided case.
Plasma nitriding; austenitic stainless steel; hardening; corrosion
