Determination of microstructure and microhardness properties of Boronized Vanadis 4 steel

Abstract

Vanadis 4 (V4) is a cold work tool steel that usually used manufacturing of die cutting punches. V-4 is a high vanadium steel and is made by powder metallurgy. It has high wear resistance, high hardness, and dimensional stability more than AISI D2 tool steel. This steel is especially preferred in the manufacture of stainless steels in cutting molds. During the shaping and cutting of the stainless, a high amount of wear occurs. Different surface coatings can be used to increase the wear resistance of this steel such as TiC, TiN, Si3N4, and Al2O3 etc. In this study, boronizing process which is different from common and conventional coating methods, were used as surface coating technique for V4 steel. Specimens were kept in EKabor II powder at 900°C and 950 °C for 6 and 8 hours by using solid boronizing method. The microstructure and microhardness analyses were done for characterizing of obtained boron coating surface.