Effect of Nitrogen on Low Temperature Nitrided Stainless Steels for Steam Turbine Blades
Ram. Subbiah1, P. Karthick2, R. Ilavarasan3, T. Prasanth4, R. Manjunath5, R. Rajavel6

1Ram. Subbiah, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, TJS Engineering College, Chennai, India.
2P. Karthick, Final Year Mechanical Engineering, TJS Engineering College, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), India.
3R. Ilavarasan, Final Year Mechanical Engineering, TJS Engineering College, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), India.
4T. Prasanth, Final Year Mechanical Engineering, TJS Engineering College, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), India.
5R. Manjunath, Final Year Mechanical Engineering, TJS Engineering College, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), India.
6Dr. R. Rajavel, Professor & Head, Mechanical Engineering, Velammal Engineering College, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), India.

Manuscript received on 20 March 2014 | Revised Manuscript received on 25 March 2014 | Manuscript published on 30 March 2014 | PP: 139-141 | Volume-3 Issue-1, March 2014 | Retrieval Number: A1027033114/2014©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: In the last few years, an increasing interest has been taken in AISI 300 series austenitic stainless steels for use in industrial applications. In these steels nickel is partly replaced by other austenite stabilizing elements like manganese, chromium, nitrogen. However, their chromium content is usually lower than that of largely used Fe-Cr-Ni based other grade of stainless steels, so that their corrosion resistance may be lower. For these AISI 300 series of stainless steels, low temperature nitriding treatments have been successfully employed to increase the corrosion resistance, due to the formation of modified surface layers consisting of chromium-nickel layers. In this research, a low nickel AISI 316LN austenitic stainless steels was subjected to gas nitriding treatments in the range of 450-5500C. The applications was found to be in steam turbine blades. The specimens were characterized by optical microscope results and scanning microscope results. The treatments produce modified surface layers having a double layer structure. When the treatments are carried out at these temperatures, the outer layer was modified by iron chromium nitrides, and their amount increases as the treatment time goes higher.
Keywords: Gas Nitriding, Steam turbine blades, Chromium Nickel, Scanning electron microscope.

Scope of the Article: Nano electronics and Quantum Computing