Reducing Geometrical, Physical, and Chemical Constraints in Surface Integrity of High-Performance Stainless Steel Components by Surface Modification

Abstract

High-performance manufacturing is difficult to perform using conventional materials removal processes since a surface integrity demand for high-performance components is strongly restricted by intrinsic interactions between the geometrical feature of components and the physical and chemical characteristics of the base material. Surface modification techniques based on known processing loads, including mechanical, thermomechanical, and thermochemical loads, are utilized for manufacturing the Fe–Cr–Ni austenitic stainless steel components. The geometrical feature and the physical and chemical characteristics as well as the controllable interactions between them are identified in the surface integrity of the surface-modified components by creating new surface layers coupled with base material. The effective surface states control, including surface morphology, microhardness, and residual stress, leads to surface integrity improvement by reducing geometrical, physical, and chemical constraints from base materials, otherwise unobtainable merely using conventional materials removal manufacturing. The fatigue life of the surface-modified components is significantly increased due to the improved surface integrity. It is proposed that high surface integrity possesses a pivotal role between the functional properties of components and their geometrical feature and materials characteristics for the high-performance manufacturing.