Diffusion enhancement of low-temperature pack aluminizing on austenitic stainless steel AISI 304 by deep rolling process

The deep rolling process is a mechanical surface treatment which plastically deforms only the surface and near-surface regions. The deep rolled AISI 304 austenitic stainless steel has been investigated to illustrate the near-surface plastic deformation effect on the aluminium diffusion rate in the low-temperature pack aluminizing process. Near-surface properties such as residual stresses and full width at half maximum (FWHM) values were measured using the X-ray diffractometer (XRD). The deep rolled, and non-deep rolled specimens were aluminized using powder pack method at the relatively low temperature of 550◦C for about 2–8 h. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) and XRD were used to characterize the surface layers. It was found that the deep rolled condition shows the higher diffusion coefficient as compared to the non-deep rolled condition. Finally, it can be mentioned that the deep rolling process can enhance the diffusion rate of the pack aluminizing treatment at the temperature of 550◦C. K e y w o r d s: stainless steel, aluminizing, deep rolling, diffusion, mechanical surface treatment