Open AccessEFFECT OF SALT BATH NITRIDING ON SURFACE ROUGHNESS BEHAVIOUR OF AISI 4140 STEEL
Author(s) -
Elhadj Ghelloudj,
Mohamed Tahar Hannachi,
Hamid Djebaili
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
acta metallurgica slovaca
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.277
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1338-1156
pISSN - 1335-1532
DOI - 10.12776/ams.v23i1.816
Subject(s) - nitriding , indentation hardness , materials science , profilometer , metallurgy , surface roughness , scanning electron microscope , nitride , surface finish , hardness , layer (electronics) , composite material , microstructure
In the present research, AISI 4140 steel was nitrided in salt bath to study and analyze the behaviour of the surface roughness. The structural surface characterization behaviour of the nitrided steel was compared to the behaviour of the same steel which was untreated. The nitriding process was implemented in the salt bath component at ten different times (from 1 h to 10 h) when the temperature was constant at (580ºC). The influence of nitriding treatment on structural properties of the material was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), microhardness tester and surface profilometer. It was found that salt bath nitriding was effective in improving the surface properties behaviour of this steel. Experimental results showed that the nitrides ε-Fe2-3(N,C) and γ’-Fe4(N,C) present in the compound layer increase the microhardness (406–502 HV0.3), the initial surface roughness values of nitrided samples were higher than those of unnitrided specimens, it also observed that the increasing the nitriding time increases the surface roughness parameters (Ra, Rq and Rz).