The LCF (low cycle fatigue) behavior and the serration phenomena in the plastically deformed and non-deformed 5052 Al alloy were investigated. The plastic deformation was performed by 1 pass or 4 passes in ECAP (equal channel angular pressing) followed by annealing. Only cyclic hardening continued from the beginning until fracture at all strain amplitudes during LCF in the non-deformed alloy, which was caused by the increase in dislocation density during fatigue. Slight cyclic hardening followed by plateau until fracture was observed during LCF in the ECAPed alloy, which was caused by the slight increase in dislocation density in the beginning and then keeping constant in dislocation density afterward until fracture by forming subgrains in this stage of fatigue. The serrations on the stress-strain curves of this alloy were observed, which indicate that the dynamic strain aging (DSA) is occurring during plastic deformation. The variation in amplitudes of serration was studied by changing the strain rate in tensile or fatigue tests.

The Co-Cr alloys have clinical histories in dental and orthopaedic implants, and recently in cardiovascular stent applications because the alloys exhibit a high elastic modulus and radiopacity. In order to improve mechanical property of the Co-Cr alloys, electropolishing is employed as the final process. Electropolishing, an anodic dissolution process in the transpassive state, is sensitively affected by process conditions such as current density, machining time, electrode gap. In this study, the effect of heat treatment conditions on surface roughness and inclusion analysis is investigated in Co-Cr alloy (L605). The most smooth surface of Co-Cr alloy is obtained when electropolishing is performed at 15-20 V for 15-30 sec with a electrode gap of 3.5 mm.

Austenitic stainless steel is more or less difficult with conventional gas nitriding treatment, but it can be nitrided after appropriate pre-heat treatment. The pretreatment was more effective upon nitriding for austenitic stainless steel than martensitic stainless steel. Both thickness and microhardness measurements indicated that effect of the nitriding treatment was more sensitive in austenitic stainless steel than martensitic stainless steel with nitriding time. Fatigue strength was most increased with SACM 645 steel among three steels.

Generally, plasma nitriding process has composed with a nitriding layer within glow discharge region occurred by energy exchange. The dissociations of nitrogen molecules are very difficult to make neutral atoms or ionic nitrogen species via glow discharge area. However, the captured electrons in which a double-folded screen with same potential cathode can stimulate and come out some single atoms or activated ionic species. It was showed an important thing that is called "hat is a dominant component in this nitriding process?" in plasma nitriding process and it can take an effective species for without compound layer. During a plasma nitriding process, it was able to estimate with analyzing and identification by optical emission spectroscopy (OES) study. And then we can make comparative studies on the nitrogen transfer with plasma nitriding and ATONA process using plasma diagnosis and metallurgical observation. From these observations, we can understand role of active species of nitrogen, like N, $N^+$, ${N_2}^+$, ${N_2}^*$ and $NH_x$-radical, in bulk plasma of each process. And the same time, during DC plasma nitriding and other processes, the species of FeN atom or any ionic nitride species were not detected by OES analyzing.

The modified 9Cr-1Mo steel (P91 steel) is very popular as a boiler tube material of the USC (Ultra-Supercritical) power plants. The steels were tempered in the temperature range of 400 to $650^{\circ}C$ and the mechanical tests, such as impact and hardness tersts were performed at the room temperature for the tempered steels. A drop in the impact value (embrittlement) and the hardeness increase were simultanously observed in the range of temperature between $475^{\circ}C$ and $600^{\circ}C$, particularly at $550^{\circ}C$. TEM observation shows the hardening was caused by $M_2C$, resulting in the embrittlement. And the maximum volume fraction of $M_3C$ was also observed at $550^{\circ}C$, Therefore, the embrittlement seems to be caused by both the $M_2C$ and $M_3C$.