Interplay of cold working and nitrogen diffusion in austenitic stainless steel

For hardness measurements, the indentation depth is about 10% of the effective information depth under static loading. A change of the wear mechanism is observed under lateral loading conditions in oscillating ball-on-disc tests for nitrided austenitic stainless steel with an expanded austenite surface layer from abrasive to a subsurface plastic flow with a redistribution of the inserted nitrogen. This leads to an effective nitriding depth about 3-5 larger than the actual nitrided zone.