THE FORMATION OF A TUNGSTEN CONTAINING SURFACE LAYER IN A CARBON STEEL BY COMPRESSION PLASMA FLOW

Abstract

Morphology, phase and elemental composition of a carbon steel surface layer after treatment by compression plasma flows containing a dispersed tungsten powder have been investigated in this work. The action of relatively short (~120 μs) and intense (15-20 J/cm2 per pulse) plasma pulses resulted in the formation of tungsten containing thin film consisting of clusters with the size of 100-200 nm. Besides the film formation treatment with a few pulses allowed to alloy a surface steel layer with tungsten and nitrogen. This treatment also led to the formation of Fe3W3C and WC carbides in the surface layer providing the microhardness increase.