Wear resistance of AISI 304 stainless steel submitted to low temperature plasma carburizing

Abstract Despite the AISI 304 stainless steel has high corrosion/oxidation resistance, its tribological properties are poor, being one of the barriers for use in severe wear applications. Thus, there is a wide field for studying technologies that aim to increase the surface hardness and wear resistance of this material. In this work, hardness and wear resistance for AISI 304 stainless steel submitted to the thermochemical treatment by low temperature plasma carburizing (LTPC) in a fixed gas mixture composition of 93% H2 and 7% CH4 are presented. Through the evaluation of the carburizing layers, it was possible to observe a substantial improvement in tribological properties after all temperature and time of treatment. This improvement is directly related to the increase of the process variables; among them temperature has a stronger influence on the wear resistance obtained using LTPC process.