JP2011157598A - Heat treatment method of steel material - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a heat treatment method of a steel material in which an improvement in the strength of the steel material is achieved. <P>SOLUTION: When ammonia gas is used as a nitriding gas in vacuum carbonitriding treatment, hydrogen produced by the decomposition of the ammonia gas permeates into the steel material and inhibits the improvement in the strength. Therefore, in the heat treatment method of the steel material in which vacuum nitriding treatment is performed after vacuum carburizing treatment, a dehydrogenation treatment to reduce the partial pressure of hydrogen in the atmosphere to 10 Pa or less is performed after the completion of the vacuum nitriding treatment. Since the dehydrogenation treatment is performed by feeding nitrogen gas into the atmosphere, only hydrogen can be released from the steel material by reducing the partial pressure of hydrogen without releasing the nitrogen permeated into the steel material by the vacuum nitriding treatment. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a heat treatment method for a steel material, and more particularly to a heat treatment method capable of obtaining a steel material having improved bending fatigue strength and surface fatigue strength.

  In recent years, there has been a demand for increasing the strength of machine structural components, and a vacuum carbonitriding process capable of improving both the bending fatigue strength and the surface fatigue strength of steel materials has been proposed. An example of the vacuum carbonitriding process is shown in Patent Document 1.

JP2007-262505A

  By the way, in the vacuum carbonitriding process, ammonia gas is used as the nitriding gas, but according to the inventors' investigation, hydrogen generated by the decomposition of the ammonia gas penetrates into the steel material and hinders its strength improvement. There was found.

  Then, this invention aims at providing the heat processing method of the steel materials which implement | achieves the strength improvement of steel materials based on the said knowledge.

  In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, in a heat treatment method for a steel material in which vacuum nitriding is performed after vacuum carburizing, dehydration is performed to reduce the hydrogen partial pressure in the atmosphere to 10 Pa or less after the completion of vacuum nitriding. Perform raw processing.

  In the first invention, after the supply of ammonia is stopped by the completion of the vacuum nitriding treatment, the hydrogen partial pressure in the atmosphere is reduced to 10 Pa or less by the dehydrogenation treatment, so that the hydrogen that has entered the steel material is released into the atmosphere. As a result, the hydrogen concentration in the steel material is lowered and the strength is improved.

  In the second invention, the dehydrogenation process is performed by supplying nitrogen gas into the atmosphere. In the second aspect of the present invention, by supplying nitrogen gas, only hydrogen can be released from the steel material by reducing the hydrogen partial pressure without releasing nitrogen permeated into the steel material by vacuum nitriding. .

  As described above, according to the steel material heat treatment method of the present invention, hydrogen that has entered the steel material during the vacuum nitriding treatment is released into the atmosphere by the subsequent dehydrogenation treatment, so that the hydrogen concentration in the steel material decreases. And the strength is improved.

It is a figure which shows a time-dependent change, such as the furnace temperature of the heat processing furnace at the time of implementing the heat processing method of this invention. It is a figure which shows the relationship between the furnace pressure in a vacuum nitriding process, and the nitrogen concentration in steel materials. It is a figure which shows the relationship between the hydrogen partial pressure in the atmosphere in a dehydrogenation process, and bending fatigue strength. It is a figure which shows the relationship between the hydrogen partial pressure in the atmosphere in a dehydrogenation process, and surface fatigue strength.

  FIG. 1 shows changes over time in the furnace temperature, furnace pressure, and hydrogen partial pressure in the furnace when the heat treatment method of the present invention is carried out. While raising the furnace temperature to T1 and lowering the furnace pressure to P1, this is maintained, and in the first half, carburizing gas is supplied to perform carburizing treatment. In the second half, the carburized carbon is diffused by supplying nitrogen gas instead of carburizing gas. Thereafter, nitriding is performed by lowering the furnace temperature to T2 and supplying ammonia gas. In this process, hydrogen is generated by decomposition of the ammonia gas and its partial pressure is increased, and hydrogen penetrates into the steel material. This hinders strength improvement. Therefore, after the nitriding process is finished, the steel material is dehydrogenated by supplying nitrogen gas so that the hydrogen partial pressure becomes 10 Pa or less while maintaining the furnace temperature and the furnace pressure. After the dehydrogenation process is completed, quenching is performed by oil cooling or the like.

  Here, the furnace temperature T1 is preferably between 900 and 950 ° C., and the furnace temperature T2 is preferably between 790 and 890 ° C. As shown in FIG. 2, the furnace pressure P1 was changed to 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.5, and 1.7 kPa. Since the change in the nitrogen concentration in the steel material is saturated at 1.1 kPa or more, it is necessary to keep it at 1.1 kPa or more. The carburizing gas is a hydrocarbon-based gas, and for example, acetylene gas can be used.

(Example)
The furnace temperature T1 of FIG. 1 was 930 degreeC, and the furnace temperature T2 was adjusted between 790-890 degreeC. Acetylene gas was used as the carburizing gas. The furnace pressure P1 was 1.2 kPa. As steel materials to be treated, JIS SCM420, SCr420, SNCM220, which are gear steels, are each provided with a notched Ono type rotary bending test piece for measuring bending fatigue strength and a roller pitching test piece for measuring surface fatigue strength. used. The Ono rotary bending test piece had a total length of 210 mm, an outer diameter of 18 mm, a notch R of 1 mm, and a stress concentration factor of 1.84. The roller pitching test piece had a total length of 130 mm and an outer diameter of 26 mm.

  The surface carbon concentration of the test piece was changed by adjusting the time of the carburizing treatment and the diffusion treatment, and in the nitriding treatment, the surface temperature nitrogen concentration of the test piece was changed by adjusting the furnace temperature T2 within the above range. The surface carbon concentration and surface nitrogen concentration were obtained by measuring the cross section of the test piece with EPMA (Electron Probe Micro Analyzer).

FIGS. 3 and 4 show 10 ⁷ times bending fatigue strength by the Ono-type rotating bending test and 10 by the roller pitching test, respectively, when dehydrogenation treatment is performed on test pieces having different surface carbon concentrations and surface nitrogen concentrations. ^The result of measuring the ^7th surface fatigue strength is shown. 3 and 4, the number before “C” indicates the surface layer carbon concentration (decimal number) of each test piece, and the number before N indicates the surface layer nitrogen concentration (decimal number).

As is clear from FIGS. 3 and 4, when the hydrogen partial pressure is set to 10 Pa or less, the 10 ⁷ times fatigue strength by the Ono-type rotary bending test and the roller pitching test is less than that when the hydrogen partial pressure is 900 Pa or 100 Pa. The bending fatigue strength and the surface fatigue strength are both greatly improved. In addition, in order to make hydrogen partial pressure into 100 Pa, in addition to nitrogen gas, hydrogen gas was also supplied in experiment.

Claims (2)

A steel material heat treatment method in which vacuum nitriding treatment is performed after vacuum carburizing treatment, and dehydrogenation treatment is performed to reduce a hydrogen partial pressure in the atmosphere to 10 Pa or less after completion of vacuum nitriding treatment. The steel material heat treatment method according to claim 1, wherein the dehydrogenation treatment is performed by supplying nitrogen gas into an atmosphere.

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