In this paper, the influence of gas nitriding (80% H2-20% N2) pressure (between 3 and 7 Torr) on the modification of surface properties of AISI 316L stainless steel is examined. The structural, mechanical, tribological and electrochemical properties of the layer produced in disk samples were studied. The samples’ characteristics were determined by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, electrochemical potential curves, microhardness, roughness and wear tests. When pressure increases, the microhardness, elasticity and thickness also increase. The maximum thickness of the nitrided layer was 6.4 µm, the hardness reached 2200 HV0.0036 and the mass loss decreased until 1% relatively to the unnitrided sample. The X-ray diffractograms showed the presence of the expanded austenite in all the samples. The correlation between these diffractograms and the corrosion results corroborate to the most recent previous conclusions of our systematic study, which evince the interconnection between the improvement of the corrosion resistance and the presence of nitrides on the top of the nitrided layer. More significant presence of such nitrides was observed for the sample nitrided at 6 Torr, whose corrosion performance was better than for the other samples. This pressure seems to be the most indicated to improve the properties under study. Moreover, the results verified not only that the sample geometry is an important factor for enhancing these properties but also that the border effect, which causes the rings on the disk border, depends on the pressure, but not on temperature or time from the plasma nitriding process.

AISI 316L stainless steel samples nitrided at different conditions of temperature and time, showing different properties, such as nitrogen concentration (C N) and nitrided layer thickness, were studied. Expanded austenite (γN) diffraction peaks up to the (222) reflection were observed using suitable wavelength synchrotron radiation. XRD patterns were fitted by Le Bail method, using a special triclinic crystal structure (with a lattice distortion n) for γN, whose peaks were decomposed in a few subpeaks, to consider C N gradient across the nitrided layer. Our results indicate that regarding γN magnetic behavior, which was observed for the samples nitrided at 450 °C, it seems to be correlated not only to high C N (≥31at.%), but also to higher η (≥2.4°), which reaches up to 5.6°. This distortion h decreases when C N increases, consequently, with its minimum close to the surface. On the other hand, for paramagnetic samples (350 °C),η increases up to 1.4° when C N increases up to 30 at.%.