Successive boronizing and austempering for GGG-40 grade ductile iron

Abstract

Boronizing and austempering were successively applied to a GGG-40 grade ductile iron in order to combine the advantages of both process in a single treatment. This new procedure formed a 30 μm thick boride layer on the surface with subsurface matrix structure consisted of acicular ferrite and retained austenite. Reciprocating wear tests showed that successive boronizing and austempering exhibited considerably higher wear resistance than conventional boronizing having a subsurface matrix structure consisting of ferrite and pearlite.