Effect of Temperature on Plasma Nitriding of AISI410 Martensitic Stainless Steel

In this study, the AISI410 martensitic stainless steel was treated by plasma nitriding. Three different temperature were employed (420°C ， 460°C， 500°C) for 6h. The microstructure, hardness and corrosion properties of the nitrided samples were characterised by a variety of analytical techniques. The result shows that the hardness of the nitrided samples is four times the size of the untreated samples and the thickness of the compound layer will decline when the nitriding temperature increases. In the electrochemical corrosion tests, the samples nitrided at 420°C and 460°C showed lower current density and corrosion rate than the original sample because of the formation of nitrided compound layer on the martensitic stainless steel. In particular, the corrosion properties of nitriding samples(420°C) are five times larger than original samples. But it reducesnitriding at high temperature(500°C) because of the precipitation of chromium.