CHARACTERIZATION OF STRUCTURE AND CORROSION BEHAVIOR OF ELECTRON BEAM TREATED STAINLESS STEELS

Abstract

Specimens of (AISI 321Ti and 420) stainless steels treated by high energy Electron Beam (EB) have been examined to investigate the change in microstructure, and its influence on the mechanical properties, and corrosion behavior in two different environments. The EB treatments have been performed with different working conditions, (incident power density, traverse speed, pattern-shaped deflections, etc.) that affected the obtained microstructure. The EB treated layers have shown almost completely novel, refined structure, com- paring with the base material, and - as a result - the surface properties have been changed. The hardness curves of (AISI 321 Ti). haven't shown considerable differences between the EB treated layers and the base material. In the case of (AISI -120). more than usual increase of hardness in treated surface layers could be observed.