1. Introduction
Low temperature carburizing of martensitic stainless steel is
an important issue in the field of thermochemical treatments and
presents strong potential for new applications and developments
in the mechanical–metallurgical field according to the results presented in this paper. Contrary to the observed for low temperature
plasma carburizing of austenitic stainless steels, which is extensively explored on the literature, it could be cited for example[1–7],
little has been published up till now for low temperature plasma
carburizing of martensitic stainless steels.
After a broad bibliographical research, a work on the subject
was found presenting non promising results for low temperature
plasma carburizing of AISI 410 martensitic stainless steel[8]. Otherwise, very promising results on low temperature gas carburizing
of PH13-8 Mo precipitation hardenable martensitic stainless steel
[9–10]and ferritic stainless steel[11]have been recently published.
These works [9–11] clearly indicate the growing research interest
comprising studies of stainless steels carburizing processes.
Considering plasma assisted thermochemical processes, a
comparative study of low temperature plasma nitriding, nitrocarburizing and carburizing for a single experimental condition (450◦
C
treatment temperature and 20 h treatment time) was presented in
[8]. It is stated in[8]that plasma carburizing did not produce significant hardening effect in treated surfaces of AISI 410 steel samples,
under the studied treatment condition. But, an adequate choice of