Practical and Economical Effects of the Use of Screen Meshes for Steel Nitriding Processes with Glow Plasma

Jerzy Pisarek, Tadeusz Frączek, Tomasz Popławski and Michał Szota
Additional contact information
Jerzy Pisarek: Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Jan Długosz Academy in Częstochowa al. Armii Krajowej 13/15, Starzyńskiego Street 1/9, 42-200 Czestochowa, Poland
Tadeusz Frączek: Faculty of Process, Material Engineering and Applied Physics, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-200 Czestochowa, Poland
Tomasz Popławski: Department of Electrical Engineering, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-201 Czestochowa, Poland
Michał Szota: Faculty of Process, Material Engineering and Applied Physics, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-200 Czestochowa, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 13, 1-14

Abstract: The dynamically developing energy sector forces technologists to create new materials that meet the increasingly higher mechanical, chemical, and electrical requirements. The paper relates to the method of reducing the energy consumption of the plasma nitriding process of austenitic steels. The method proposed by the authors involves the modification of nitriding technology in glow plasma. It consists of introducing perforated screens between the anode and nitrided surface made of a material with a composition similar to the processed material and the use of an HF power supply with controlled mean current generating negative voltage peaks of about 1000 V. Nitriding is carried out in a nitrogen-hydrogen atmosphere. The processed material has a negative potential in relation to the surrounding plasma and strongly negative in relation to the vacuum chamber jacket. The actual treatment is preceded by ionic cleaning of the surface of the detail and heating it to the temperature that activates the diffusion processes. The authors analyse the dynamic distribution of electric fields generated at the surface of the nitrided material with different configurations of the cathode-sample-screen system, trying to find the correlation of treatment parameters with the parameters of the nitrided layer. A significant influence of the screening meshes on the depth of the obtained diffusion layers containing nitrogen was found. The oscilloscopic measurements of the plasma in the boundary layer allowed for the observation of voltage peaks, probably leading to an increase in the peak kinetic energy of nitrogen ions and their easier penetration into the material. The work is of a cognitive nature and is probably one of the first to look for relationships between the dynamic electrical parameters of plasma and the efficiency of nitriding.

Keywords: energy saving; innovative metallic coatings; DC plasma discharge; processing electrical parameters; glow discharge nitriding; vapour deposition; cathode sputtering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/13/3808/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/13/3808/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:13:p:3808-:d:581638

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().