ABSTRACT
Studies on surface engineering area are given great importance due to the improvement that surface modifications provide to materials. With a global market that has the need to provide parts and equipment with extended service life and low cost, to support stringent requests and thus maintain its high performance, surface treatments may bring what was impossible into reality. Among the surface treatments that have received attention recently, we have the thermochemical process of boriding. The boriding process consists of saturate the surface of steels and metal alloys with boron. This saturation provides an increase in the surface properties not inherent to the base metal, such as hardness, resistance to abrasion and corrosion. Although the properties of boriding steels have already been studied, the effects that the boriding process perform on the steel during or after the welding processes are not known. Hence, it is the purpose of this study to evaluate the microstructure of a low carbon steel treated with boriding before and after GTAW welding. The results indicated poor metallurgical weldability of low carbon steel with boride layer, with the presence of solidification cracks. Nonetheless, the steel welded previous to boring treatment presented a more ductile nucleus, with harder surface. Although the values of hardness within the nucleus of the steel had dropped drastically at the welded zone after the boring, the surface of this steel showed higher values of hardness due to the boriding layer. This fact should be considered when applications where wear resistance is needed.
Boriding; GTAW; Microstructure
