Supermartensitic stainles steels (SMSS's) are a new generation of martensitic steels that have been increasingly used in oil and gas applications due to their adequate corrosion resistance and mechanical properties. In the present study, SMSS specimens (UNS S41425) were solution heat treated and air cooled followed by plasma nitriding and nitrocarburising at 400, 450 and 500°C for 5h. The produced layers were characterized by optical microscopy, microhardness testing, X-ray diffraction and corrosion testing in NaCl 3.5% solution. Surface alloying with nitrogen or both nitrogen and carbon results in increased surface hardness and homogeneous layers in which layer thickness increases with temperature. However, plasma nitriding yields a slightly thicker case than nitrocarburising. X-ray diffraction indicates very broad and overlapped peaks for the treatments conducted at 400°C. Increasing treatment temperature appears to result in the formation of chromium nitrides and iron nitrides and carbides, depending on the treatment. It was also found that treatment temperature drastically affects the corrosion response of the steel. The untreated steel presented a pitting potential close to 250mV. Plasma nitriding at 400°C was the only condition in which significant improvement of corrosion is observed. For plasma nitriding and nitrocarburising at 450 and 500°C, some pitting was detected.

Samples of ductile cast irons alloyed with Cu, Cu-Ni and Cu-Ni-Mo were austempered, borided and boro-austempered and characterized for hardness and micro-adhesive wear behavior. The kinetics of layer formation was also studied. The boriding method used was molten borax bath, in periods of 2 and 4 hours at temperatures of 850, 900 and 950 ºC. The direct austempering treatment was performed immediately following the boriding treatment (from 850, 900 and 950 ºC) using molten salt baths at temperatures of 240, 300 and 360 ºC for 4 hours (boro-austempering treatment). For comparative purposes, the conventional austempering treatment was also conducted. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Brinell hardness measurements (on the substrate) and Vickers (on the layers) were performed, along with micro-adhesive wear tests. The boriding treatment resulted in the formation of high hardness layers, in the range of 1450 to 1750 HV, with high wear resistance. The wear resistance of borided and boro-austempered samples were increased by 40 times when compared to as cast or austempered samples, indicating the high efficiency of this type of treatment in increasing the wear resistance of this material.