The use of the nickel free, high nitrogen stainless steel powder and nitriding during sintering of iron based materials have been shown as an alternative way to the conventional PM stainless steels containing nickel. Nitrogen as an alloying element for iron improves in an effective way the properties of sintered alloyed steels. The powder metallurgy route is a suitable way to introduce nitrogen into these alloys and, in particular, to produce high nitrogen (close to the solubility limit) stainless steels. The paper presents and discusses the nitriding behavior of nickel-free stainless steels produced by powder metallurgy method. Alloyed melt was atomized by nitrogen and in this way nitrogen was introduced into the powder. Further nitriding occurred during sintering in a nitrogen atmosphere. For comparison, compacts having the same composition as an alloyed powder were produced from elemental powders mixture. Sintering-nitriding behaviour of investigated materials has been controlled by dilatometry, chemical and X-Ray phase analysis and metallography. Mechanical properties of sintered compacts were also measured.

The effect of chemical composition of the sintering atmosphere on density, microstructure and mechanical properties of Fe-3%Mn-(Cr)-(Mo)-0.3%C steels is described. Pre-alloyed Astaloy CrM and CrL, ferromanganese and graphite were used as the starting powders. Following pressing in a rigid die, compacts were sintered at 1120 and in atmospheres having different ratio and furnace cooled to room temperature. It has been found that the atmosphere composition has negligible effect on the as-sintered properties of the investigated materials.