Enhancing the capability of plasma treated austenite stainless steels as thermal reactor materials

In this article, the influence of radio frequency plasma nitriding three differnt grades of austenite stainless steels as nuclear materials for thermal Reactors has been studied. The plasma nitriding process was prformed for all samples at the same plasma nitriding environmental conditions, using (1:1) hydrogen and nitogen gases at 500 W plasma power and 7.5 × 10⁻² mbar gas pressure. The structure, surface microhadness, tribological, wettability and nuclear attenuation properties of samples were examined before and after the plasma nitriding process. The surface properties for all nitrided samples achieved remarkable improvement compared with untreated ones. The HMn10Ni sample showed the best surface microhardness, abrasive dry wear, sliding friction, wettability ,absorption of slow neutrons while the gamma ray attenuation properties was comparable to the other investigated austenite stainless steel samples. (paper)