Residual Stresses and Dimensional Changes in Ferritic Nitrocarburized Navy C-rings and Prototype Stamped Parts Made from SAE 1010 Steel

Nitrocarburizing is an economical surface hardening process and is proposed as an alternative heat treatment method to carbonitriding. The focus of this study is to compare the size and shape distortion and residual stresses resulting from the ferritic nitrocarburizing and gas carbonitriding processes for SAE 1010 plain carbon steel. Gas, ion and vacuum nitrocarburizing processes utilizing different heat treatment temperatures and times were performed to compare the different ferritic nitrocarburizing processes. Navy C-Ring specimens and prototype stamped parts were used to evaluate size and shape distortion. X-ray diffraction techniques were used to determine the residual stresses in the specimens. Overall, the test results indicate that the nitrocarburizing process gives rise to smaller dimensional changes than carbonitriding, and that the size and shape distortion can be considerably reduced by applying appropriate ferritic nitrocarburizing procedures.