VACUUM PROCESSES USED FOR HEAT AND SURFACE TREATMENTS OF STEELS AND SPECIALTY ALLOYS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17563/rbav.v43i1.1262Keywords:
Heat treatment, Nitriding, CoatingAbstract
The heat treatment of steels and specialty alloys has evolved over the years to meet the need for efficient processes that achieve specific microstructures and properties with minimal surface quality degradation caused by chemical interactions between the metal surface and the heat treatment environment. As a result, vacuum heat treatment furnace technology has gained an important position in industrial processes, ensuring microstructural metallurgical quality and surface integrity, with greater dimensional and shape stability and less distortion. Taking into account the importance of heat treatment in microstructural conditioning to achieve properties in the volume of the component body to withstand in-service demands, it is important to consider that wear and corrosion are important factors controlling the end of life of components for a wide range of industrial applications. Recently, there has been a growing effort to solve wear and corrosion problems through the use of surface treatments.1,2 Surface engineering has been the focus of significant academic and research and development activities, and is increasingly used in industry through special vacuum processes such as plasma nitriding and physical vapor deposition coatings. These processes are important production routes and are environmentally friendly according to the management systems required by the ISO 14000.3
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