Experimental investigation of borided kinetics on martensitic stainless steel

This work proposes, the analysis of solid boronizing of martensitic stainless steel (grade SS410) was carried out to improvise the surface characteristics of material. Though this martensite material possessed higher hardness than austenitic and duplex type stainless steel, the wear resistance overlays are made on the surface to improve wear resistance. Therefore, it requires the surface treatment process. Thus the continuous working of SS410 valves and shafts need high wear resistance. One of the best processes to improve the wear resistance is boronizing process and it is carried out in electric furnace with 4.5 KW. The input process parameters such as temperature (900 °C to 950 °C) and time (2 h to 4 h) are selected for this investigation. The pin on disc tester, optical microscope and Vickers micro hardness tester are used to find the specific wear rate, boronizing thickness. The boriding kinetics was calculated and measures 186 KJ/mol of activation energy of boron for this material. From this investigation the 3 times of improvement of specific wear rate was observed and compared with non borided material. Also the hardness improved to 5-fold compared with non treated material. Thus from this analysis the boronizing process improves the surface characteristics drastically and it reduces the service failure of Industrial components.