Kinetics and mechanism of austenite decomposition in carbonitrided low-alloy steel
Résumé
Gear applications typically require high wear and fatigue resistance in order to optimize service times. This combination of properties is obtained by carburizing or carbonitriding of low alloy steel. In particular, the latter has notably been proved more effective than the former [1]. For this reason, carbonitriding is widely deployed in the industry. In spite of that, the metallurgical origin of the observed property improvements with the addition of nitrogen remains poorly understood. While the literature dealing with the effect of carbon content on the microstructural evolution of low-alloy steel is rather comprehensive [2], such is not the case for nitrogen.