Synthesis of aluminum-rich coatings on new high-temperature cast austenitic steel CF8C-Plus by a pack cementation process

In this research, a pack cementation process is developed for coating the newly developed cast austenitic steel CF8C-Plus. The developed coating process is capable of producing pack particle free coatings on large fatigue test specimens in a horizontal laboratory tube furnace as well as smaller oxidation and creep test samples. Several methods for the production of the pack powder free Al-rich coating are presented and evaluated for samples of both sizes. The developed coating is intended to compete with coatings of a similar quality produced with chemical vapor deposition and slurry coating methods.;Additionally, because CF8C-Plus has only recently become available there is currently no available data on the effect of the fabrication of an Al-rich coating on the substrates properties. This research used advanced characterization methods to evaluate the coating surface and cross-sectional features. These methods include scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, electron probe microanalysis and energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis. This is the first time that this information has been made available to the scientific community. Also, the oxidation performance of the coating will be tested and compared to other coatings developed with CVD and slurry coating methods and the preliminary results of the effect of the coating on the alloys fatigue performance will be presented.