A new approach to improve SCC resistance of austenitic stainless steel with a thin CrN film, deposited by cathodic vacuum arc deposition technique

Excellent mechanical properties coupled with good corrosion resistance, rendered austenitic stainless steel (ASS) as a widely used material for all types of engineering applications. However, the susceptibility to stress corrosion, in the simultaneous presence of stress and corrosive media, limits the application in special cases. s research, a new approach has been adopted i.e. coating the steel surface with a thin passive layer of chromium nitride by cathodic vacuum arc deposition (CVAD) and its effect on the stress corrosion cracking (SCC) resistance is studied. The parameters were optimized for SCC resistance purpose with the aim to decrease the droplet content. Coating characteristics are important as they determine the failure of substrate–coating combination under test condition. The time-to-failure (TTF) of the coated specimens increased by a factor of ∼ 2.5. Furthermore, the substrate–coating failure mechanism was investigated in order to gain more insight into the new approach and to augment its application.