Introduction
In the late 70th ELTRO developed the pulse plasma technology with variable duty cycle pulses
and hot wall reactor, opening a complete new world of possibilities in plasma nitriding. This
system is now state of the art and allows the easy treatment of more parts with better quality at
lower price per part. Modern concepts which use the full advantage of this technology push it to
the leading edge of modern high volume thermochemical treatment.
Nitriding
Most of manufactured parts have significant performance requirements at or near to their
surface. An optimal selection of the surface treatment is crucial for the performance. Nitriding
and nitrocarburizing can economically protect parts against wear and corrosion with the formed
compound zones in the outmost layer of up to appr. 20 μm and in addition form an underlying
diffusion zone which is much thicker up to 0.6 to 0.8 mm which support the compound zone
and strongly improve fatigue behaviour. Modern pulse plasma treatment capabilities allow the
optimisation of both layers to take full advantage of the different behaviour of the layers
summarized in table 1.
Please open the attached PDF file for the Table 1 and continue reading the full article, which will be very useful to know more about Plasma Nitriding.
