Performance Testing of Ion Nitridation System for Surface Treatment

It has been carried out a performance testing of ion nitridation system for surface treatment. The purpose of the testing is to check the performance of constructed ion nitridation system for improving of surface hardness of the metal. Testing done cover the vacuum, utilization of ion nitridation system for treatment of the samples and its characterization. It's found that the vacuum system with reactor tube can achieve in order of 3.7 X 10-2 mbar while without reactor tube, the vacuum in order of 3 x 10-2 mbar. From this result it can be concluded that there is no leak of vacuum system. Utilization testing of the ion nitridation system done by introducing N2 and N2 + H2 gas into reactor tube. It's found that, if the reactive gas only N2, the improving hardness that can be achieved only in order of 523.5 KHN. While if the reactive gas is the mixing of N2 + H2, the improving hardness that can be achieved in order 868.5 KHN. It meant that there is an increasing in hardness in order of 4.05 times. Observation of the diffusion depth of the nitrogen has been done by measuring the hardness of the cross section microstructure samples. It 's found that the diffusion depth of the nitrogen is in order of 110 μm. From micro structure observation, it's found that there are changing in grain size in order of 95 μm from the surface. From these result, it can be concluded that the constructed ion nitridation system can be operated well. (author)