• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.3-9
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• 2011

Plasma nitriding of stainless steels has been investigated over a range of temperature from 400 to $500^{\circ}C$ and time from 10 to 20 hours. Characterization of systematic materials was carried out in terms of mechanical properties and corrosion behaviors. The results showed that plasma nitriding conducted at low temperatures not only increased the surface hardness, but also improved the corrosion resistance of STS 316L, STS409L, and STS 420J2. It was found that plasma-nitriding treatment at $500^{\circ}C$ resulted in increasing the corrosion performance of STS 409L and STS 420J2, while STS 316L was observed with server and massive damage on surface due to the formation of CrN.