THE EFFECT OF NITRIDING A MARTENSITIC STAINLESS STEEL WITH RESPECT TO TEMPERATURE VARIATION

This project is a study on solution nitriding of martensitic stainless steel. It consists of
project's background, literature reviews, methodology, and all the process and
procedures related to the project. Nitriding is one of the heat treatment method used for
strengthening the material by diffusing the nitrogen into the surface of martensitic
stainless steel. The objective of this project is to study the effect of nitriding of AISI 410
martensitic stainless steel at different temperature which are 950"C, 1 OOO"C and 1 050°C
under nitriding time of 6 hours. Next is to evaluate the changes in the microstructure
surface and also to evaluate the hardness of the nitrided martensitic stainless steel. In
order to achieve the objectives, the metallographic study, and hardness test was
performed. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), Optical
microscope (OM), Vickers Microhardness tester has been used to study the nitride
surface. Results from the hardness test shows an increment in the hardness value of the
nitride samples from 254HV (as received) to 385.1HV (nitrided at 1050"C). Based on
that, nitrogen diffuses into the surface better at high temperature. Hence, it strengthens
and also improves the hardness of the martensitic stainless steel.