The investigation of mechanical properties of ion-nitrided AISI 5140 low-alloy steel

The ion nitriding behavior of AISI 5140 low-alloy steel was investigated under different process parameters including time (1, 4, 8, and 12 h), temperature (400, 450, 500, and 550 °C), and gas mixture ratio (0.05, 0.33, and 3 N2/H2). The ion nitriding properties of AISI 5140 steel have been assessed by evaluating fatigue strength, hardness profile, compound layer thickness, and case depth by using a rotating bending fatigue machine, a microhardness tester, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). It was found that ion nitriding improves the fatigue strength, which depends on increasing the case depth, but the compound layer does not have a dominant effect on the fatigue strength. After the fatigue tests, sections of ion-nitrided specimens were observed to have failed by the fish eye phenomenon with the fatigue cracks originating from nonmetallic inclusions.