Non-vacuum electron-beam boriding of low-carbon steel

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study on high-speed non-vacuum electron-beam cladding of boron powders on low-carbon steel. We studied one-, two- and three-layer boride coatings. The structure of the coatings was investigated by optical microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results of friction tests against fixed and loosely fixed abrasive particles and gas abrasion erosion tests are discussed. Most of the properties of samples produced by the new technology exceed the properties of the samples produced by pack boriding technology. In many cases, this is explained by the higher thickness of electron-beam coatings. Among the three variants of clad coatings, the best results for different types of tests were obtained for the two-layer electron-beam coating.