Nanotribological behavior of deep cryogenically treated martensitic stainless steel

• Germán Prieto,
• Konstantinos D. Bakoglidis,
• Walter R. Tuckart and
• Esteban Broitman

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1760–1768, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.177

• , SE581 83 Linköping, Sweden 10.3762/bjnano.8.177 Abstract Cryogenic treatments are increasingly used to improve the wear resistance of various steel alloys by means of transformation of retained austenite, deformation of virgin martensite and carbide refinement. In this work the nanotribological

• cryogenic treatments increased both hardness and elastic limit of a low-carbon martensitic stainless steel, while its tribological performance was enhanced marginally. Keywords: carbide refinement; cryogenic treatments; friction; nanoindentation; nanoscratch; wear-resistance improvement; Introduction AISI

• operative mechanisms during the cryogenic treatment of steels discussed in the current state-of-the-art literature are: transformation of retained austenite [2][3][4], carbide refinement [5][6][7] and plastic deformation of virgin martensite [8][9]. Because of the high hardenability of low-carbon AISI 420