Plasmanitrieiren industrieller Aluminiumbauteile

Plasma-assisted nitriding of aluminium alloys as a suitable alternative to anodising treatments is up to now only used on a laboratory scale. In this paper results are reported of an attempt to apply plasma-assisted nitriding to industrial aluminium parts. Crucial points were the uniformity of the temperature within the batch and the surface quality. Topography, thickness, chemical composition and hardness of compound layers were examined by SEM, metallographic sections, XPS and ultramicrohardness measurements. The performance of nitrided parts was tested in a wear test under practical conditions. The connection of spacing between the parts within the batch and uniformity of temperature and nitride layer growth was studied to determine the critical batch size.