Emerging Trends in Liquid Nitriding Technology

HEF Engineers are continuously working on widening their range of liquid nitriding applications with new Chemicals, process parameters and process sequence like cooling options, post nitriding operations like polishing and Surface impregnation options,  that meet the stringent requirements of Customers at the same time maintaining environmentally-friendly technologies. 

These new technologies offer a very wide range of use properties from the point of view of mechanical characteristics, tribological properties or corrosion performance.

In addition to the ARCOR V, ARCOR C and ARCOR N treatments, well known in the world of industry, 3 new treatments have been developed in recent years, i.e. ARCOR DT, ARCOR L and ARCOR CS.

ARCOR DT

The ARCOR DT treatment was specially developed for the low-temperature nitriding of engine valves.

Since the treatment temperatures can vary between 490°C and 530°C, it is therefore easy to nitride engine valves (made of martensitic steel, austenitic steel or nickel alloy) receiving induction quenching on the end of their stem before treatment.

This treatment offers great nitriding power and great low-temperature viscosity. It is the ideal treatment (from a technical and economic point of view) for replacing hard chromium-plating on engine valves.

ARCOR L

The ARCOR L treatment was specially developed to offer a small increase in surface roughness.

It is a ferritic nitrocarburizing process with treatment temperatures which can vary between 530°C and 590°C depending on the steel to be treated and the specification required.

The ARCOR L treatment makes it possible to comply, without a post-treatment polishing stage, with roughnesses of the order of Ra = 0.4 µm.

The ARCOR L treatment, though resulting in low surface porosity, offers interesting corrosion resistance (of the order of 300 hours in salt spray on simple parts).

ARCOR CS

The ARCOR CS treatment is the CLIN treatment offering the highest corrosion resistance.

It is a ferritic nitrocarburizing process with treatment temperatures which can vary between 500°C and 590°C depending on the steel to be treated and the specification required.

This process offers considerable wear resistance as well as excellent corrosion resistance.

To summarize, ARCOR® liquid nitrocarburizing technology can help enhance:

  • Wear resistance
  • Corrosion resistance
  • Ductility
  • Impact resistance
  • Bending fatigue strength

In addition to these performance benefits, the nitriding duration with this optimized ARCOR® liquid nitrocarburizing is much shorter, resulting in faster turnaround times to our customers!