Fatigue and cyclic deformation behavior of non- and boronized austenitic stainless steel AISI 304 at room and elevated temperatures

Abstract

A thermochemical surface treatment, the powder-packed boronizing process was optimized and then performed on an austenitic stainless steel, AISI 304. Afterwards, boronized specimens were cyclically loaded at ambient and elevated temperatures (350, 550 and 650 °C). Then the results were compared with the behavior in non-boronized condition. Nonstatistically evaluated S-N curves and cyclic deformation curves were investigated and are discussed. It was found that the boronizing process only improved the high cycle fatigue (HCF) properties of the austenitic stainless steel AISI 304 at room temperature. An endurance limit of about 340 MPa was observed in the boronized condition, whereas a fatigue strength of about 300 MPa was detected for the non-boronized condition. However, at elevated temperatures boronizing was not associated with enhanced fatigue performance of this steel.

Keywords

• fatigue
• boronizing
• stainless steel
• surface treatment