Radiation shielding, mechanical and tribological properties of treated AISI304L using H2/N2 rf plasma

Abstract

The electro-slag re-melting technique was used to produce locally two standard stainless steel samples, AISI304L and AISI316L. The shielding properties of both neutrons and gamma radiations were determined using He-3 and NaI(Tl) detectors. A mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen gases (1:1) was used to investigate the effect of rf plasma surface engineering on properties of austenite stainless steel AISI304L which is used in many parts of nuclear power plant. The X-ray diffraction technique was used for recognizing the structural phases on the studied austenite stainless steel samples. The rf plasma process was performed for half an hour at stable gas pressure and water cooling rate. As a result of the rf plasma surface engineering process, enormous enhancement was achieved in surface microhardness, tribological properties and remarkable increase in the absorption cross section for slow neutrons. Moreover, the gamma ray attenuation properties for the HN304L sample is to great extent comparable with those of AISI316L and AISI304L austenite stainless steel samples. As a consequence, the obtained results give a further support in favor of the rf plasma engineering in the nuclear domain.