High-pressure nitrogen gas alloying of Fe-Cr-Ni alloys

The melting of Fe-Cr-Ni alloys under 200 MPa nitrogen pressure has shown that nitrogen significantly improves the mechanical properties. Tensile strengths of these high-nitrogen alloys were found to be proportional to interstitial nitrogen concentration. The tensile strengths of nitrogen-alloyed steels could be significantly increased over comparable carbon-alloyed steels. The increase in tensile strength was found to be proportional to the square root of the interstitial nitrogen concentration indicating that the strengthening may be controlled by thermal effects.