Metals such as stainless steel and alloy 600 are used as structures and materials in nuclear power plants due to their excellent mechanical properties and heat resistance. And recently thermal and mechanical cutting technologies are being actively researched and developed for dismantling NPP. Among them, the mechanical cutting method has the advantage of less secondary waste generation such as fume and fine dust, but according to the wider the cutting range, the reaction force and the cutting device size are increased. In this paper, plasma assisted milling has been proposed to reduce the reaction force and device size, and the plasma efficiency was measured for SUS 316L. The plasma torch was operated at the level of 3 to 4 kW so that it was heated only without cutting. And the feedrate was set at 150 to 250 mm/min. The test confirmed that the plasma efficiency was 35% about SUS 316L, and it is expected that the numerical analysis using these test results can be used as basic data for plasma assisted milling.

In this study, using the plasma spray method, tensile and compression fatigue tests are performed in saline solution to examine the effect of Ti undercoat on corrosion fatigue behavior of alumina-coated specimens. The alumina-coated material using Ti in the undercoat shows better corrosion fatigue strength than the base material in the entire stress amplitude range. Fatigue cracking of UT specimens occurs in the recess formed by grit-blasting treatment and progresses toward the base metal. Subsequently, the undercoat is destroyed at a stage where the deformation of the undercoat cannot follow the crack opening displacement. The residual stress of the UT specimen has a tensile residual stress up to about 100 μm below the surface of the base material; however, when the depth exceeds 100 μm, the residual stress becomes a compressive residual stress. In addition, the inside of the spray coating film is compressive residual stress, which contributes to improving the fatigue strength characteristics. A hardened layer due to grit-blasting treatment is formed near the surface of the UT specimen, contributing to the improvement of the fatigue strength characteristics. Since the natural potential of Ti spray coating film is slightly higher than that of the base material, it exhibits excellent corrosion resistance; however, when physiological saline intrudes, a galvanic battery is formed and the base material corrodes preferentially.

Porous metals demonstrate not only excessively low densities, but also novel physical, thermal, mechanical, electrical, and acoustic properties. Thus, porous metals exhibit exceptional performance, which are useful for diesel particulate filters, heat exchangers, and noise absorbers. In this study, SUS316L foam with 90% porosity and 3,000 μm pore size is successfully manufactured using the electrostatic powder coating (ESPC) process. The mean size of SUS316L powders is approximately 12.33 μm. The pore properties are evaluated using SEM and Archimedes. As the quantity of powder coating increases, pore size decreases from 2,881 to 1,356 μm. Moreover, the strut thickness and apparent density increase from 423.7 to 898.3 μm and from 0.278 to 0.840 g/cm3, respectively. It demonstrates that pore properties of SUS316L powder porous metal are controllable by template type and quantity of powder coating.

Chromium nitride (CrN) samples with two different layer structures (multilayer and single layer) were coated on bipolar plates of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) using the reactive sputtering method. The effects with respect to layer structure on corrosion resistance and overall cell performance were investigated. A continuous and thin chromium nitride layer (Cr0.48 N0.52) was formed on the surface of the SUS 316L when the nitrogen flow rate was 10 sccm. The electrochemical stability of the coated layers was examined using the potentiodynamic and potentiostatic methods in the simulated corrosive circumstances of the PEMFC under 80˚C. Interfacial contact resistance (ICR) between the CrN coated sample and the gas diffusion layer was measured by using Wang's method. A single cell performance test was also conducted. The test results showed that CrN coated SUS316L with multilayer structure had excellent corrosion resistance compared to single layer structures and single cell performance results with 25 cm2 in effective area also showed the same tendency. The difference of the electrochemical properties between the single and multilayer samples was attributed to the Cr interlayer layer, which improved the corrosion resistance. Because the coating layer was damaged by pinholes, the Cr layer prevented the penetration of corrosive media into the substrate. Therefore, the CrN with a multilayer structure is an effective coating method to increase the corrosion resistance and to decrease the ICR for metallic bipolar plates in PEMFC.

The MIM industry is currently focusing on parts that are used in automobiles and medical instruments. Many of the parts in these categories are very small and often not easy to machine because of its complex geometry. Therefore MIM is well suited for the production of these parts. We tested the sinterability of SUS316L ultra fine powders (3,4, 6, 8micron) produced by ATMIX high-pressure water-atomization, and it showed excellent results. A density of 97% theoretical was obtained by sintering at 1373K when using the ultra fine powder (3micron). Specifically, the finer the powder size, higher was the sintered density. The surface roughness and accuracy are also greatly improved with ATMIX ultra fine powder.

Granulated powders, prepared from PF-5F(D50=4μm), PF-10F(D50=6μm) and PF-20F(D50=10μm) water atomized powder, were compacted, debound and sintered to evaluate the properties of sintered parts. As a result, the relative sintered density of about 97% at sintering temperature of 1423K was obtained. It can be considered that by using granulated finer particle size powder, mechanical properties of sintered parts were also improved.

SUS316L stainless steel, commercial pure Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy powders applied by Mechanical Milling (MM) process are sintered by Hot Roll Sintering (HRS) process. Microstructure and mechanical properties of those HRS materials is investigated. The microstructures of materials produced by HRS process consist of fine grains and work-hardened structure, that is, the hybrid microstructure. Tensile test of the HRS material demonstrated the good mechanical properties. These results show that the HRS process is very effective to the improvement of mechanical properties in the SUS316L stainless steel, commercial pure Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy.