Manufacturing of hardmetal tools often involves surface grinding, ion etching and final coating. Each stage throughout the manufacturing chain introduces surface integrity changes which may be critical for defining the final mechanical behavior of the coated tools. Within this context, an experimental test program has been developed to assess the influence of a coating (TiN) deposition on surfa...

κ-carbide hardening in a ferrite-austenite duplex low-density FeMnAlC steel has been investigated as a function of annealing processing within the temperature range 500−900 o C. Below 600 o C, a high hardness can be attained by the fine microstructures, e.g. the thin lamellar κ-carbides in austenite and dispersed nanosized particulate κ-carbides in ferrite. After further annealing, the alloy so...