Frication Property of Mo-Cr-Infiltrated Steel Layer by Plasma Surface Metallurgy

Introduced in this article is the technique to acquire a high performance strengthened layer on carbon steel samples, namely, plasma alloying on the surface of Q235 steel and heat treatment technology. With this technique the alloying elements of Mo, Cr, and C can be obtained on the surface of Q235 steel samples. The content of the constituent elements is approximately up to high speed steels (HSS). The surface property required for the HSS after hardening and low tempering is attained. In the test, the alloying elements Mo and Cr were penetrated into the Q235 steel samples by glow discharge sputtering so that the content of the alloyed layer on the surface of the Q235 steel samples was about 20% Mo and 10% Cr. Two kinds of experiments were conducted. One was to carry out ultra-saturated carburization. The alloyed layer's composition was similar to molybdenum HSS with surface carburizing of more than 2.0%. The carbides of the alloyed layer were compact, uniform and disperse without a coarse eutectic ledeburite structure. The another was ion nitriding after the alloying elements of Mo and Cr were penetrated. The first process included hardening with low tempering and hardening with cryogenic treatment for 2 hr and low tempering. The second one was ion nitriding only. It was found that the surface hardness after cryogenic treatment is up to 1600 HV, much higher than that without cryogenic treatment. The abrasion test results indicate that, without the penetrated alloy elements Mo and Cr and without cryogenic treatment and ion nitriding, the friction coefficient is lower by one order of magnitude. The change in relative resistance is similar to the change in the friction coefficient, but without a proportional relationship.