Nitriding during powder production and study of the structure of EP741NP alloy doped with nitrogen

The development of modern technics is limited by the physical and mechanical characteristics of the produced alloys, properties of which are often determined and enhanced by introduced alloying components. One of the alloying elements that have been very actively introduced in recent years is nitrogen. As a rule, alloying with nitrogen is carried out by ferroalloys, less often by gaseous nitrogen, which has significant advantages. In the processes of special electrometallurgy, alloying with nitrogen can be performed using, for example, nitrogen-containing plasma. Such a method may be feasible in the production of powder metal by spraying the ingot with nitrogen-containing plasma. It is known that performance properties of the products made of powder metal are significantly higher than those of cast metal. This served as a stimulus for investigating the properties of a product obtained from nitrided powder alloy EP741NP. In this work, a study of changes in the chemical composition, microstructure and microhardness of EP741NP alloy samples was carried out. The studied material was nitrided metal powders made on a plasma centrifugal spraying (PREP) unit and ingots from granules obtained by hot isostatic pressing (HIP). The chemical composition of the obtained samples was determined by wave dispersion X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. In order to study the microstructure of metal powders and ingots, the methods of scanning electron microscopy with EDXS were used. Microhardness of the samples was assessed using a microhardness tester by the Vickers method. The analysis of gas impurities was carried out on a gas analyzer. It is shown that nitriding of heat-resistant nickel alloy EP741NP is possible at the stage of metal powder production, without significant loss of alloying components and a sharp change in chemical composition. An increase in microhardness of the obtained nitrided samples was noted in comparison with the initial one.