Surface Roughness and Initial Pressure Effect on Superplastically Carburized Duplex Stainless Steel

Superplastic carburizing (SPC) is a carburizing process that combines carburizing with superplastic deformation. Since SPC involves direct interaction between the superplastically deformed surface and the solid carbon medium, the effect of surface roughness on the process cannot be disregarded. This paper presents the study of surface roughness and initial pressure effects on superplastic carburizing of duplex stainless steel (DSS). SPC was conducted under four different surface roughness (R-a) conditions of 0.9, 0.3, 0.1 and 0.03 mu m. The microstructure, surface hardness, and carburized layer thickness were studied. Comparisons were also done on non-superplastic material which has a coarse microstructure. The results showed that the surface roughness strongly affected the properties of the superplastically carburized duplex stainless steel while its effects on the non-superplastic material were not that obvious.