Surface treatment by high current pulsed electron beam

Electron beams are becoming an increased subject of interest for materials processing. While continuous electron beams have already found wide applications in drilling, hardening, cutting and welding, the advantage of a pulsed electron beam has just emerged. It generates a high power density up to 1...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSurface & coatings technology Vol. 163-164; pp. 620 - 624
Main Authors Dong, C, Wu, A, Hao, S, Zou, J, Liu, Z, Zhong, P, Zhang, A, Xu, T, Chen, J, Xu, J, Liu, Q, Zhou, Z
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 30.01.2003
Subjects
Carburizing
Electron beam
Ion alloys
Pulsed
Surface alloying
Surface modification
Ion alloys
Electron beam
Surface modification
Carburizing
Pulsed
Surface alloying
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Summary:Electron beams are becoming an increased subject of interest for materials processing. While continuous electron beams have already found wide applications in drilling, hardening, cutting and welding, the advantage of a pulsed electron beam has just emerged. It generates a high power density up to 108–109 W/cm2 at the target surface. Such a high energy is deposited only in a very thin layer within a short time, and causes superfast processes such as heating, melting and evaporation. A dynamic stress field induced in these processes leads to significant modification effects in the material. The combination of these processes provides the material with improved physicochemical and mechanical properties unattainable with ordinary surface treatment techniques. The present paper reports our recent research work on surface treatment by high-current pulsed electron beam (HCPEB). HCPEB is produced on system ‘Nadezhda-2’ with an energy range of 20–40 kV. A series of pure Al and mold steels were studied. Some of them were pre-coated with C, Cr, Ti or TiN powders. A strong enhanced diffusion effect was revealed: the surface elements diffuse approximately several micrometers in depth into the substrate only after several bombardments. Tribological behaviors of these samples were characterized and significant improvement in wear resistance was found. Finally, TEM analysis reveals the presence of stress waves generated by the coupling of thermal and stress fields, which constitutes the main cause of the enhanced diffusion.
ISSN:0257-8972
1879-3347
DOI:10.1016/S0257-8972(02)00657-6