Influence of Plastic Pre-Strain on Low-Temperature Gas Carburization of 316L Austenitic Stainless Steel

In this paper, the influence of pre-strain on low-temperature gas carburization of 316L austenitic stainless steel was investigated. A group of flat specimens were uniaxial tensile to several levels of pre-strain including 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% engineering strain. Then, the pre-strained specimens was treated by low-temperature gas carburization at 470 °C for 30 h. In order to elucidate the effect of pre-strain on low-temperature gas carburization, optical microscopy (OM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA), microhardness tester and residual stress analyzer were used. Meanwhile, dislocation density of the pre-strained specimens was semi-quantitatively measured by means of X-ray diffraction analysis and the role of dislocation density on carbon diffusion during low-temperature gas carburization was discussed. The results show as follow: (1) the thicknesses of the carburized layers are independent of the pre-strain degree. (2) dislocation density increases with the increasing pre-strain, but almost has no effect on carbon diffusion at the given carburizing temperature. (3) an outstanding surface with hardness (≈ 1150 HV0.1) and compressive residual stress (≈1900 MPa) is introduced by low-temperature gas carburization, and the strengthening results of carburization are unaffected by pre-strain.