A study on the wear behavior of borided 430F ferritic stainless steels

In today's developing world, it is very important that the materials are resistant to friction environments. Various surface treatments are applied to the materials reduce friction and wear losses. The boriding process, which is one of these surface treatments, is a thermochemical surface hardening process. Due to the relatively hard boron layer formed on the surface of the materials, the material resistant to wear and corrosion can be obtained. In this thesis, AISI 430F (ferritic) stainless steel which is frequently used in transportation and food sectors was boronized by the box boriding method and the wear resistance of the steel was investigated after boriding process. Additionally, XRD, microhardness and SEM-Optical analysis of the boride layers were conducted. Boriding process was carried out in stainless steel box using commercial Ekabor II boron powder at temperatures of 900 ºC and 1000 ºC and for 2, 4 and 6 hours. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that various boron compounds were formed on the surface of the steel and the boron layer thickness increased with increasing temperature and time. This increase was contributed positively to the wear resistance of the steel.