Modification of high-speed steels by nitrogen compression plasma flow: Structure, element composition, tribological properties

The influence of the nitrogen compression plasma flow impact on the phase and element composition and tribological properties of AISI M2 and AISI T1 high-speed steels was investigated in this work. The bank capacitor initial voltage, the number of pulses and nitrogen pressure in the vacuum chamber varied during experiments, providing the change of energy deposited in the surface layer within the limits of 5–13 J/cm2 per pulse. X-ray diffraction analysis, Auger electron spectroscopy, Rutherford backscattering analysis, scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, friction coefficient and microhardness measurements were used for the characterization of the treated samples. It was found that the treatment of both types of steel resulted in austenite formation in the surface layer and carbide partial dissolution. The growth of energy deposited in the surface layer leads to the increase of thickness of the affected by treatment layer up to 24 μm and to the decrease of MC and M6C carbides volume fraction in the analyzed layer. Treatment leads to nitrogen penetration into the steel up to the depth of 400 nm and the redistribution of the alloying elements in the surface layer. The decrease of hardness due to dissolution of carbides was observed almost in all range of treatment parameters, thus making unsuitable the usage of the compression plasma flow treatment for high-speed steels tribological properties improvement as a stand-alone technique.