Abstract
Carbon steels are widely used in manufacturing of simple constructions and machine elements. The main limitations of these materials are their low hardness, poor friction and poor wear properties. For that reason, many attempts have been made to improve their hardness and other mechanical properties. One of the challenges is to find ways to improve the surface property of cheap steels in order to enhance its usage properties and ultimately extend the service life in an economic way. Due to its high hardness, vanadium carbides are often applied to the surface of carbon steels through coating processed and thermal diffusion processes.
Samples of high carbon steels are treated using the molten slag process to form vanadium-based alloy layer on the surface of steel. After treatment using the mentioned molten slag process, the anti-wearing property of high carbon steel is improved by 15.6 times. The surface-alloy layers on high carbon steel are found in the form of vanadium carbide with a composition of VC0.8. The hardness of the alloy layer is 2200Hv, 3.4 times higher than that of high carbon steel.