QPQ Salt Bath Nitriding and Corrosion Resistance

Abstract

The QPQ complex salt bath treatment is a type of surface strengthening technology which contains mainly salt bath nitriding and salt bath post-oxidizing processes. The effect of nitriding temperature and duration on the corrosion resistance of QPQ treated specimens is explored by immersion tests and salt spray tests in this paper. The material used in this study was 1020 annealed steel. In the immersion tests, the specimens were immersed in 3‰H2O2 and 10% NaCl water solution. In the salt spray tests, specimens were salt spray tested using a 5% NaCl neutral solution. The data indicate that, when the nitriding duration is less than 2 hours at temperature below 590(phase change will exist when the nitriding temperature is above 590 according to Fe-N phase diagram) , the higher temperature of the salt bath nitriding , the specimens will have the higher corrosion resistance. In addition we have found that nitriding for too short a time generates a thin compound layer, and nitriding for too long generates too much porosity. Both will deteriorate the corrosion resistance.