Plasma Nitriding of an Air-Hardening Medium Manganese Forging Steel

Abstract The impact of plasma nitriding on the microstructure and hardness a recently developed 4 wt.-% medium manganese steel are presented. In contrast to standard quench tempering steels, investigated material achieves its martensitic by air-cooling from forging heat, which enables reduction carbon footprint forged components. influence this grade has not been so far, but fundamental differences in comparison steels expected due increased concentration. To address issue, treatments with different temperatures (350 °C, 580 °C 650 °C) have performed, followed examinations microstructure, phase composition, obtained profiles tensile properties bulk after nitriding, accompanied thermodynamic equilibrium calculations. It is demonstrated that at similar like achieved, shorter process as austenitization hardening were omitted, reaching approximately 950 HV0.1. Furthermore, it was austenite can be stabilized nitrogen partitioning room temperature during intercritical region.