Surface treatment of steels for nuclear systems materials using pulsed electron beam technique

Surface treatment of steels AISI316Ti and C60 using pulsed electron beam technique at GESA I facility (Gepulste Elektronen Strahl Anlage I) has been carried out. Improvement on the surface layer of the steels was achieved. A thin film with strong bonding to the substrate, fine-grained, and homogeneous was formed. The melted thin layer thickness of steels AISI316Ti and C60 were ≤50μm correspond to the characteristic of GESA I facility. In relation to the hardness property, an increase in the steel C60's hardness up to 4.2 was observed. The results showed that the pulsed electron beam technique has superiority to improve the mechanical properties of steels with the tight bonding between the melted layer and the substrate therefore this technique is promising for application to the advanced nuclear systems materials. (author)