THE INFLUENCE OF THE TIME OF TECHNOLOGICAL SOAKING OF NITRIDED EN-X37CrMoV5-1 TOOL STEEL AT A HIGHER TEMPERATURE ON THE STRUCTURE, MICROHARDNESS, AND TRIBOLOGICAL WEAR OF THE SURFACE LAYER

The paper concerns the assessment of the influence of the duration of high-temperature soaking of steel intended for dies for extruding aluminium profiles on the structure, microhardness, and tribological wear of the top layer. Gas nitrided hot work tool steel X37CrMoV5-1 (WCL) was used in the tests. For technological reasons, before the extruding process, such dies are pre-heated for several hours to a temperature ranging from 400°C to 600°C. Due to the possibility of various unplanned situations (failures), the soaking time may be extended even up to more than ten hours. Therefore, soaking was used after the nitriding process due to the application nature of the research whose purpose was to identify changes occurring in the nitrided layer after soaking of dies at a higher temperature (520°C) and before starting the extruding process, and thus to determine for how long the dies may be held in a furnace without undesirable changes in the top layer. The examined samples were soaked in an industrial furnace at 520°C for 2 h, 4 h, 6 h, 8 h, 10 h, and 12 h. Samples heated to 520°C and then immediately cooled down and the reference material which was not heated after the nitriding process were also examined for comparison purposes. The obtained results of the tests of the microhardness of the nitrided layer indicate that it decreased as the soaking time increased to 6 hours. After this time, that parameter is stabilised and further heating up to 10 hours does not cause a significant decrease in the microhardness of the top layer. A further decrease in the microhardness of the layer was observed for samples soaked for 12 hours. The results of tribological tests showed an analogous course of changes in the tribological wear of the examined material as the soaking time increased. The performed tests indicate the possibility of holding dies at a higher temperature