j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmrt

Original Article

Effect of nitriding on mechanical and

microstructural properties of Direct Metal Laser
Sintered 17-4PH stainless steel

J.R. Jessy Michla a, B. Ravikumar b, T. Ram Prabhu c, Suchart Siengchin d,

M. Arul Kumar e, N. Rajini a,*
a
International Research Center, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and
Education 626126, India
b
CSIR-National Metallurgical Lab, Jamshedpur, 831007, India
c
CEMILAC, Defence R&D Organization, Bangalore 560093, India
d
Department of Materials and Production Engineering, The Sirindhorn International Thai-German Graduate School
of Engineering (TGGS), King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok, 1518 Wongsawang Road, Bangsue,
Bangkok 10800, Thailand
e
Materials Science and Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA

article info abstract

Article history: In this work, the effect of the nitriding process on microstructure and mechanical prop-
Received 16 April 2022 erties of additively manufactured (AM) 17-4PH stainless steel is investigated. The nitriding
Accepted 31 May 2022 was performed at 530
C, 560
C, and 580
C for 2 h. The nitriding process improves the
Available online 11 June 2022 hardness and surface roughness of the AM 17-4PH steel. Detailed microstructural char-
acterizations of both as-built and nitride samples are performed using an optical micro-
Keywords: scope, scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with energy-dispersive X-ray
17-4PH steel spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray diffraction technique. It reveals that the nitride layer
Nitriding thickness increases with nitriding temperature. A distinct transition layer between the
Micro-hardness substrate and nitride layer is observed in the 560
C and 580
C nitride samples. The
Surface roughness nitriding process develops almost equiaxed grain microstructure with new secondary
Precipitates phase precipitates, whereas in the as-built material, the grains are primarily columnar
DMLS along the AM process build direction. Specifically, the nitriding process introduces g-Fe4N,
ε-Fe3N, CrN, and Ni3N precipitates. The increase in Ni- and Cu-rich precipitates with the
nitriding temperature explains the observed improvement in the hardness and surface
roughness. Furthermore, the nitriding process does not alter the substrate's initial weak
crystallographic texture.
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: rajiniklu@gmail.com, n.rajini@klu.ac.in (N. Rajini).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2022.05.198
2238-7854/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1
1. Introduction
17-4 precipitation-hardened (PH) stainless steel is a low car-
bon precipitate strengthened martensitic steel. High chro-
mium and nickel content stabilize the austenitic phase,
thereby offering excellent corrosion and wear resistance
[1e3]. Thus, it has been widely used for several industrial
applications, including nuclear [4] and chemical industries [5].
Commonly, 17-4PH steel components are manufactured using
conventional methods such as metal injection molding [6,7],
casting [8,9], and sintering techniques [10]. Recently, Additive
Manufacturing (AM), which is known to manufacture complex
three-dimensional (3D) parts, has been employed to fabricate
17-4PH steel components [11e13]. Specifically, Direct Metal
Laser Sintering (DMLS) method is applied to fabricate PH steels
with customized microstructure to obtain desired structural
properties [14,15].
Directional solidification and repeated heating-and-
cooling associated with the AM process result in compo-
nents with columnar grain structure, strong crystallographic
texture, and significant residual stresses [1,16]. Thus, the
mechanical and tribological properties of AM components are
poor [17e19]. Generally, post-heat treatment processes are
widely used to dissipate the internal residual stresses and
modulate grain morphology, precipitate content, and crys-
tallographic texture [11,20,21]. Heat-treatment H900, in which
the material is solutionized and aged, is commonly used to
improve the mechanical properties [22e24]. For example, the
H900 heat-treatment process increases the micro-hardness
and yield strength of AM 17-4PH steel from 230 HV and
540 MPa to 414 HV and 1170 MPa, respectively [25]. However,
the tribological property of both as-built and heat-treated AM
17-4PH steel is still deficient [26]. Thus, it requires a specific
surface treatment to enhance surface properties such as sur-
face hardness, surface roughness, and microstructure, which
is focused on in this work.
In general, surface treatments namely plating [27], anod-
izing [28], coating [29e31], and case hardening [32], improve
the surface properties such as hardness [33,34], corrosion
[23,35], and wear resistance [23,36] without deteriorating the
bulk properties like yield and ultimate strength, and ductility
[37]. Among these processes, nitriding, a case hardening
treatment, is considered here, which is known to metallurgi-
cally improve the surface properties of the base metal and also
highly suitable for stainless steels [38,39]. Based on the me-
dium, nitriding processes are broadly classified as plasma,
salt-bath, and gas nitriding [40e44]. Among them, salt-bath
nitriding is known to be more effective for low-carbon steels
[45e47]. Wang et al. report that the salt-bath nitriding im-
proves the surface hardness of conventionally manufactured
17-4PH steel from 309 HV to 1105 HV [48]. In the nitriding
process, nitrogen atoms diffuse into the base metal (substrate)
and develop a hard, wear and fatigue-resistant nitride layer. In
steels, an iron-based nitride layer is formed on the top surface,
which enhances the surface properties [49]. The nitriding
temperature and duration control the diffusion of nitrogen
atoms into the base material and so the microstructure [50,51].
A few studies have attempted to investigate the effect of these
two parameters of the nitriding process on the surface
2811
properties and microstructure of 17-4PH steel [51,52]. For
example, Wang et al. [50] studied the effect of nitriding tem-
perature in conventionally manufactured 17-4PH steel by
varying the temperature from 610
C to 650
C for a fixed
duration of 2 h. They found that the decomposition of an
expanded austenitic phase at 650
C gives relatively lower
surface hardness and wear resistance than other nitriding
temperatures (610
C and 630
C). In another study, Wang et al.
[51] reported that when nitrided at 430
C, maximum surface
hardness is achieved only after 40 h of nitriding, whereas
excellent corrosion resistance is achieved for 4 h of nitriding.
To the best of our knowledge, such a detailed analysis of
nitriding in AM 17-4PH steel is not yet performed and thus
limits its applicability.
In this work, we systematically investigate the effect of the
nitriding process on the surface properties and microstructure
of AM 17-4PH steel at three different temperatures (530
C,
560
C, and 580
C) for a fixed duration of 2 h. The nitrided
samples' surface hardness and roughness values were
measured and compared against the as-built material. Detailed
microstructural characterization is performed using an optical
and scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction tech-
nique to understand and interpret the measured surface
properties. The results showed that the surface hardness and
the nitride layer thickness increase with the nitriding temper-
ature. On the other hand, the surface roughness decreases with
the nitriding temperature. Further, the nitriding process de-
velops an almost equiaxed grain structure with uniform dis-
tribution of crystallographic texture. All-inclusive, this paper is
structured as follows. Initial material, nitriding process, and
characterization techniques are presented in Section 2.
Measured surface properties are reported in Sections 3.2 and
3.3. Further, in Sections 3.4 to 3.6, microstructural character-
izations of the nitrided samples are presented and discussed in
connection with the surface properties. Finally, the key findings
of this study are summarized in Section 4.
2. Experiments
2.1. Initial material
17-4PH steel, which is fabricated using the DMLS additive
manufacturing process (EOS M 280) in an argon inert gas at-
mosphere, is selected for this study [53]. The initial raw ma-
terial used for the AM process is in powder form with a particle
size ranging from 20 to 65 mm, and its chemical composition is
listed in Table 1. Cylindrical samples of 100 mm in length and
15 mm in diameter are fabricated using the DMLS method
with the following process parameters: platform temperature:
80
C; laser power source: 290 W; laser beam diameter: 80 mm
and hatch distance: 0.1 mm.
2.2. The nitriding process
Cylindrical samples of 5 mm thick and 15 mm diameter were
cut from the AM rod. The axis of the cylindrical sample is
parallel to the AM process build direction. The top flat surfaces
of the cylindrical samples were ground and polished to a
mirror finish and then ultrasonically cleaned. To investigate
2812 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1

2.3. Mechanical and microstructural characterization

Table 1 e Chemical composition of the 17-4PH powder
used in the AM process.
First, scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging of the ni-
Element Weight Percentage (wt %)
trides sample's cross-section and the line mapping of nitrogen
Chromium 15.00e17.50 using Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) were ac-
Nickel 3.00e5.00 quired to measure the nitride layer thickness. Next, the micro-
Copper 3.00e5.00
hardness of both as-built and nitrided 17-4PH steels was
Silicon 1.00
Manganese 1.00
measured using a Shimadzu HMV G-series Vickers Micro-
Phosphorus 0.040 hardness tester. Following the ASTM standard E384, micro-
Sulfur 0.030 hardness tests were performed using a diamond-shaped
Carbon 0.07 indenter under a load of 500 g and a dwell period of 10 s on the
Nb þ Ta 0.15e0.45 top surface and in the sample's cross-section. On the top
Iron Balance
surface, micro-hardness tests were performed at several lo-
cations for all samples. On the cross-sectional view, hardness
the effect of nitriding temperature on surface properties, three tests were conducted with a spacing of 10 mm from the surface
different temperatures are considered. ASM handbook [54] of into the substrate. The surface roughness was measured
Nitriding and ferritic carburizing recommends that the opti- using Surftest SJ-301 (Mitutoyo) profilometer at a scan speed of
mum temperature range for salt-bath nitriding of steels is 0.25 mm/s at five different locations for each sample and
540
Ce580
C. Accordingly, in this work, salt-bath nitriding repeated three times.
was performed at 530
C, 560
C, and 580
C for 2 h. To mini- Grain morphology and the spatial distribution of pre-
mize the sudden heating-induced changes in the micro- cipitates are characterized using optical microscopy (OM) and
structure and also to remove the moisture and dirt, samples SEM images. For microscopy, specimens were polished using
were preheated to 300
C for 30 min before the nitriding pro- the standard metallographic techniques and etched with
cess. The preheated samples were then placed inside the Viella's reagent [55]. The etching solution consists of 1 gm
cyanide-free salt-bath nitriding chamber at the pre- Picric acid þ5 ml HCl þ100 ml ethanol. FESEMeCARLZEISS and
determined temperatures of 530
C, 560
C, and 580
C for 2 h. EDAX made by BRUKER (USA) were used to image the topog-
The samples were instantly water quenched after nitriding. raphy of the top surface and cross-sectional microstructure of

Fig. 1 e The effect of nitriding temperature on the layered structure: SEM micrographs of samples nitrided at (a) 530
C, (b)
560
C, and (c) 580
C; and (d) the corresponding EDS line mapping of nitrogen for all three temperatures. The nitriding
process develops the nitride layer and adjacent transition layer. The latter is not visible for the case of nitriding at 530
C.
Here NL, TL, and SS stand for nitride layer, transition layer, and substrate, respectively. (e) Average nitride layer thickness as
a function of the nitriding temperature. The error bar represents the variation in the layer thickness.
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1 2813

adjacent layer is formed and separates the nitride layer from

Table 2 e Measured microhardness on the top surface of
the substrate, which is evident in the 560
C and 580
C cases,
as-built and nitrided 17-4PH steels along with the values
from the literature. but not so in the 530
C case. This adjacent layer has lower
nitrogen content than the nitride layer, and it is referred to as
17-4PH Steel Micro-Hardness References
the ‘transition layer (TL)’. Qualitatively, the SEM images and
(HV)
EDS line mapping reveal that the thickness of the nitride
DMLS As-built 375 ± 4 *
layers increases with temperature. It implies that the tem-
DMLS Nitrided at 530
C 1132 ± 3 *
DMLS Nitrided at 560
C 1140.2 ± 4 *
perature increase from 530
C to 580
C accelerates the diffu-
DMLS Nitrided at 580
C 1156.4 ± 6 * sion of nitrogen atoms into the base material. Note that the
Sintering 294 [58] nitrided samples of this study are free from the internal
Wrought 322 ± 10 [33] cracks, which are commonly observed during the nitriding
Wrought þ Solution heat 309 [48] process for a prolonged duration [40,51]. For example,
treated
nitriding of wrought duplex stainless steel at 430
C for 16 h
*
Represents the micro-hardness values obtained from this work. developed cracks at the interface between the nitride layer
and substrate [56].
17-4PH steel. The X-ray diffraction technique is employed to The average nitride layer thickness as a function of
identify the phases and measure the crystallographic texture. nitriding temperature is plotted. The thicknesses measured
The phases were detected using a Bruker Eco D8 Advance X- from the SEM images and EDS analysis are shown in Fig. 1(e).
ray diffractometer, which exerts Cu Ka radiation at an oper- Overall, this result quantitatively shows the increase in nitride
ating voltage of 40 kV and a current of 25 mA. X-ray diffraction layer thickness with the nitriding temperature. The nitride
patterns were obtained over a 2q range of 30
e100
with a step layer thickness increases steeply for the temperature from
size of 0.02
with a counting time of 1s per step. 530
C to 560
C, and then it saturates at 580
C. The differ-
ences in the layer thickness from SEM image and EDS are
possibly associated with the metric used for the thickness
3. Results and discussion measurement. The nitride layer is marked using the observed
contrast in the SEM images, whereas the nitrogen profile is
3.1. Effect of temperature on nitride layer thickness used in the EDS method. However, both techniques give a
similar trend on the nitride layer thickness with temperature.
Figure 1 shows the cross-sectional SEM images of the samples
nitrided at (a) 530
C, (b) 560
C, and (c) 580
C. The SEM-EDS 3.2. Effect of nitriding process on microhardness
line mapping of nitrogen from the surface into the substrate
for all three temperatures is shown in Fig. 1(d). The SEM im- The microhardness values on the top surfaces and the cross-
ages and EDS line mapping clearly show the nitride layer for sections of the as-built and nitrided samples were measured
all three temperatures, marked as NL. In addition, a new using the diamond-shaped indenter. Table 2 summarizes the

Fig. 2 e Micro-hardness profiles of 17-4PH steel from the sample surface into the substrate for different nitriding
temperatures. Hardness tests were performed with a spacing of 10 mm using a diamond indenter (figure inset). The vertical
dashed lines represent the measured nitride layer thickness.
2814 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1
Fig. 3 e Effect of nitriding temperature on the surface
roughness values of DMLS 17-4PH steel. For comparison
purposes, the surface roughness of the as-built sample is
plotted. The increase in nitriding temperature decreases
the surface roughness significantly.
measured top-surface microhardness values of 17-4PH steel
and the values from the literature. First, the as-built DMLS 17-
4PH steel exhibits better microhardness than the sintered/
wrought material. The nitriding process improves the surface
hardness significantly compared to the as-built material.
Similar observations have also been reported for wrought 17-
4PH steels [43,57]. Further, an increase in the nitriding
Fig. 4 e Backscattered microscopy images of the top surface of (a) As-built (AB) and nitrided at (b) 530
C, (c) 560
C, and (d)
580
C 17-4PH steel samples.
temperature increases the microhardness values, but its ef-
fect is marginal.
Figure 2 shows the variation in the microhardness values
from the surface into the substrate of both as-built and
nitrided 17-4PH steels. Vertical dashed lines in Fig. 2 mark the
corresponding nitride layer thickness. The hardness tests
were performed with a step size of 10 mm from the surface to
substrate, as shown in the figure inset. The microhardness
value for the as-built material is almost constant from the
surface to the substrate. Upon nitriding, the microhardness
value is higher at the surface for all three nitriding tempera-
ture cases and decreases rapidly first and then gradually while
moving into the substrate. Finally, it reaches a value closer to
the as-built case. The observed steep fall in the microhardness
occurred across the interface between the nitride layer and
transition layer/substrate, which can be easily seen from the
marked nitride layer thickness lines. Among all three tem-
peratures, microhardness values are higher for the 580
C
case, and the rate of decrease is lower compared to the other
two temperature cases. This suggests that at higher temper-
atures, i.e., 580
C, nitrogen diffusion happened beyond the
identified nitride layer also.
3.3. Effect of nitriding process on surface roughness
Figure 3 shows the surface roughness of the as-built and
nitrided samples measured using the surface profilometer.
The measurement was repeated five times, and the observed
variation was represented via error bars in Fig. 3. The nitriding
process decreases the surface roughness compared to the as-
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1
Fig. 5 e SEM analysis of the 580
C nitrided sample top
surface shows the nitriding process-induced precipitates
at the grain boundaries visible.
built sample. Further, the increase in nitriding temperature
decreases the surface roughness values. Specifically, the sur-
face roughness decreased from 1.330 mm of the as-built pol-
ished sample to 1.244 mm, 1.038 mm, and 0.482 mm
corresponding to the samples nitrided at 530
C, 560
C, and
580
C, respectively.
The improvement in the surface roughness can be associ-
ated with the nitrogen diffusion process and also the possi-
bility of recrystallization. Apart from the observed surface
Fig. 6 e Optical images of (a) as-built and (c) 530
C nitrided samples cross-section. (b), (d) and (e) show the enlarged view of
the grain morphology before and after nitriding. For the nitrided sample, the image was taken near the transition layer to
understand the effect of nitriding on the substrate material.
2815
improvement, the variation in the surface roughness within a
sample (error bar) decreases with increasing the nitriding
temperature. It suggests that, in addition to the improvement
in the average surface roughness, the nitriding process de-
velops a homogeneous surface also.
3.4. Microstructural characterization
To understand the observed improvement in the microhard-
ness and surface roughness, in this section, microstructures
of the top surface and cross-sections of the nitrided samples
are analyzed compared to the as-built material. The top sur-
face backscattered microstructure of the as-built and nitrided
samples is shown in Fig. 4. The dark spots in the microstruc-
tures are the precipitates, and it is observed in all the cases
(Fig. 4(a-d)). The appearance of white lines (uneven chain-like
pattern) indicates the formation of iron nitrides (Fe3-4N) on the
surface during nitriding, and it is consistent with the work of
Vandervoot [55]. The increase of dark regions in the 580
C
case is most likely associated with the microsegregation of
grains due to the formation of precipitates.
To investigate further, an SEM image of 17-4PH steel
nitrided at 580
C with higher magnification is recorded, see
Fig. 5. It reveals that the micron-sized precipitates are pri-
marily located at the grain boundaries, and, at the same, a few
intragranular precipitates are also present. The presence of
precipitates at the grain boundaries can potentially suppress
the grain growth and/or grain boundary sliding when sub-
jected to extreme environments. Further, we postulate that
the observed increase in hardness (see Table 2) may be due to
2816 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1
Fig. 7 e XRD analysis of the as-built and nitrided 17-4PH steels for various temperatures. The measurement was performed
on the top surface of the sample.
the presence of both inter and intra-granular precipitates [59].
To identify these precipitates, a detailed characterization
using X-ray diffraction and SEM-EDS is performed and pre-
sented in Sections 3.5 and 3.6.
To understand the effect of the nitriding process on the
substrate, the microstructure was studied near the transition
layer (just below the nitride layer). For comparison purposes,
the microscopic image of the as-built sample cross-section is
shown in Fig. 6(a). The magnified view in Fig. 6(b) shows the
AM process developed columnar microstructure. Mostly, the
long axes of the columnar grains are parallel to the build di-
rection. Similar to the top surface shown in Fig. 4(a), the pre-
cipitates are randomly distributed along the grain boundaries
and within the grains. Cross-sectional optical image of the
530
C nitrided sample is shown in Fig. 6(c), and the magnified
view of the region near the transition layer is shown in Fig. 6(d)
and (e).
Unlike the as-built material, the grains are almost equi-
axed with a lath structure. Also, the size of the grains in the
nitrided samples is smaller than in the as-built sample, as
seen in Fig. 6(e). The reduction in grain size is potentially due
to the formation of intragranular precipitates and partial
recrystallization. Similar observations were reported by Van-
der Voot et al. by comparing the microstructures of untreated
and H1100 solution heat-treated 17-4PH steels [55].
3.5. Phase analysis of the nitride layer
X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was conducted to identify the
phases for the as-built and nitrided samples. XRD diffracto-
gram of as-built and all three nitrided 17-4PH samples are
shown in Fig. 7. The diffraction was performed on the top
surface of the nitrided samples. XRD diffractograms of the as-
built sample reveal that it is mainly dominated by the a-Fe
phase with a smaller amount of g-Fe (austenite phase). A
similar observation has been reported elsewhere [22,26]. On
the other hand, the nitriding process develops new phases
and evolves with nitriding temperature. At 530
C, we don't see
distinguishable peaks for either the parent martensite or new
phases. The observed overlapped peaks look similar to the
‘amorphous-like’ features, which might lead to the bright
contrast seen in the microscopy image shown in Fig. 4(b).
Later, we see a clear transition from the non-crystalline
(amorphous-like) to crystalline pattern with an increase in
the nitriding temperature [60]. At 560
C, we see clear and
distinguishable peaks of a-Fe, CrN, Fe3N, Fe4N, and a0 N
compared to 530
C. However, the observed peaks are broad-
ened. It may be due to the formation of the a0 N (expanded
austenite) phase during the nitriding process and the possi-
bilities of local defects around the a0 N phase. The presence of
the a0 N phase distorts the lattice locally and thus develops
high internal residual stresses, which broadens the diffraction
peaks [61,62]. At 580
C, CrN and a-Fe peaks intensify, and at
the same time, a0 N disappears. This is due to the formation of
CrN precipitates by depleting the Cr from a0 N (a0 N / a þ CrN)
[51]. The other observed peaks at 580
C were g-Fe4N, ε-Fe3N,
and Ni3N.
3.6. Characterization of precipitates
In this section, the types and morphology of the precipitates
are studied using backscattered SEM imaging and EDS. The
left column of Fig. 8 shows the top surface SEM images of the
samples that are nitrided at (a) 530
C, (c) 560
C, and (e) 580
C.
The inset in Fig. 8(b), (d) and (f) represents the mean weight
percentage and standard deviation of the elements present in
each spectrum. Based on the shape and color contrast, we
observe three different precipitates: rod-like bright features,
black and greyish spherical precipitates. All these three types
of precipitates are present in all the nitriding cases. A detailed
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1 2817

Fig. 8 e Backscattered electron microscopy image of nitrided 17-4PH steel at 530
C (a), 560
C (c), and 580
C (e) with EDS
results showing the presence of (b) nickel-rich precipitates (d) copper-rich precipitates and (f) niobium-rich precipitates.
Figure inset on (b), (d) and (f) indicates the mean weight and standard deviation of all elements present in each spectrum.

EDS analysis reveals that the bright rod-like precipitates are
rich in Ni, whereas the black and greyish precipitates are rich
in Cu and Nb, respectively. Experimentally acquired EDS
spectrum for a few precipitates are shown in the second row
of Fig. 8. Spectrum analysis of Ni- (spectrum 7 and 9), Cu-
(spectrum 37 and 38) and Nb- (spectrum 50 and 54) rich pre-
cipitates are shown in Fig. 8(c), (e) and (g), respectively.
The Ni-rich precipitates are commonly observed in 17-4PH
steels [63], and thus increase the high-temperature mechan-
ical strength [14]. The presence of Ni-rich precipitates also
promotes the stability of the protective oxide film and reduces
both pitting and crevice corrosion propagation that occurs
during corrosion attacks [1,64]. Compared to Ni-rich pre-
cipitates, the Cu-rich precipitates are smaller and uniformly
distributed in the microstructure. Interestingly, the presence
of Cu-rich precipitates increases with the nitriding tempera-
ture. A similar observation has been reported in [1], wherein
Cu-rich precipitates are formed only after solution heat
treatment at 1040
C and subsequent aging at 472
C for 1hr.
The initial solution heat treatment at 1040
C does not form
Cu-rich precipitates in the samples. Similarly, Jiang et al. also
showed that the Cu-rich precipitates are spherical, and their
density increases with heat treatment temperature [65].
Extensive literature suggests that the increase in Cu-rich
2818 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1
Fig. 9 e Stereographic pole figures as measured using X-ray diffraction technique in the (a) as-built and (b) 580
C nitrided
17-4PH steel.
precipitates increases the hardness and yield strength of the
material. [66e68] This explains the observed increase in the
microhardness with nitriding temperature; see Fig. 2 and
Table 2. Nb-rich precipitates are primarily observed in the
580
C nitrided sample. Commonly, Nb-rich precipitates are
formed along the grain boundaries of 17-4PH steel [69], and
thus, it reduces the solid-solution strengthening [70]. In the
present study, the amount of Nb-rich precipitates is less than
other precipitates, hence not affecting the hardness signifi-
cantly. At the same time, Nb-rich precipitates are known to
improve the surface roughness via grain refinement [71]. This
also explains the observed improvement in the surface
roughness with the nitriding temperature, see Fig. 3. Overall,
this detailed characterization of precipitates suggests that the
hardness and surface roughness of the materials can be
modulated by controlling the precipitate types and their size.
3.7. Influence of nitriding on crystallographic texture
In this section, the effect of the nitriding process on the
crystallographic texture is investigated. Incomplete pole fig-
ures of the samples are obtained using the X-ray diffraction
technique. Figure 9 shows the (110) (200), and (211) pole figures
taken on a plane parallel to the rod axis, i.e., build direction for
the (a) as-built and (b) 580
C nitrided samples.
There is no preferred orientation in the as-built sample,
which may be a consequence of static recrystallization and
grain growth during the AM process. Similar observation, i.e.,
random crystallographic orientation, has been reported for
17-4PH steel fabricated using DMLS [25], selective laser
melting [72], Laser Direct Metal Deposition [73], and Wire Arc
Additive manufacturing processes [74]. After the 580
C
nitriding process, the material exhibits weak texture, see
Fig. 9(b), similar to that in the as-built sample. Thus, it sug-
gests that the nitriding process does not alter the crystallo-
graphic texture noticeably, while it improves the surface
properties.
4. Summary
In this work, the effect of the nitriding process on additively
manufactured 17-4PH steel is investigated at three different
nitriding temperatures (530
C, 560
C, and 580
C) for a fixed
duration of 2 h. The nitriding process increases the surface
hardness approximately three times compared to the as-built
condition. The surface roughness is reduced significantly by
the nitriding process, and most importantly, it decreases more
with an increase in the nitriding temperature. Detailed
microstructural characterization reveals that the nitriding
process (i) changes the columnar grain structure to more of an
equiaxed; (ii) develops different types of inter and intra-
granular precipitates; (iii) does not alter the initial weak
crystallographic texture. These microstructural observations
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 2 ; 1 9 : 2 8 1 0 e2 8 2 1
helped to rationalize the observed improvement in the me-
chanical properties.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from Salem
Material Technology and Company, and Kalasalingam Acad-
emy of Research and Education for their contribution to this
research work. The work was financed by Thailand Science
Research and Innovation Fund and King Mongkut's University
of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB), Thailand with
Contract no. KMUTNB-FF-65-19.
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