Other

Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.

Fumio Iwane

Shuji Yamada

Tadashi Hamada

Junji Imai

Hiroshi Yamada

Shinji Fujimoto

Shigetoshi Sakon

Hiroaki Yoshida

An intermetallic-compound coated stainless steel having excellent rigidity, toughness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance comprises a substrate of a martensite stainless steel having a Vickers hardness of 400 or more, and a hard film having a bottom surface adhered to the substrate and an exposed top surface. The hard film has an outermost layer made of a compound selected from the group consisting of a Ti&mdash;Ni intermetallic compound, Ti&mdash;Fe intermetallic compound, and a mixture of the Ti&mdash;Ni intermetallic compound and a Ti&mdash;Cu intermetallic compound. The coated stainless steel can be produced by cladding an outer sheet made of Ti or a Ti alloy to a martensite stainless steel sheet directly or through an intermediate sheet made of Ni, Fe or a Ni&mdash;Cu alloy, heating the laminate at a temperature of 900&deg; C. to 1150&deg; C. for 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and then cooling the heated laminate at a cooling rate of 1&deg; C./sec or more.

Stainless steel coated with intermetallic compound and process for producing the same

A ferrous alloy is formed with a Fe--Cr stainless steel having a Vickers hardness of 400 or more as a substrate and a Fe--Al diffusion layer having a thickness of 2 to 50 .mu.m. The diffusion layer contains at least 90 vol % of an intermetallic compound of Al and Fe relative to a total volume of the diffusion layer. The Al content included within a depth of at least 2 .mu.m of the diffusion layer is 35 to 65% by weight based upon total weight of a region of the diffusion layer ranging up to the thickness of at least 2 .mu.m. It is preferred to use as the substrate a precipitation-hardening stainless steel comprising 66 to 81.9 wt % of Fe, 15 to 20 wt % of Cr, 3 to 13 wt % of Ni, and one element selected from 3 to 6 wt % of Cu, 0.5 to 2 wt % of Al, and 0.01 to 0.2 wt % of a total of C and N, or a high carbon stainless steel comprising 73 to 89.9 wt % of Fe, 10 to 19 wt % of Cr, 0.1 to 1.2 wt % of C, and less than 3 wt % of Ni. The ferrous alloy may be used for sliding parts such as gears or bearings, and blades of electric shavers or hair clippers.

Ferrous alloy with Fe-Al diffusion layer and method of making the same

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Nagoya, Japan

Fumio Iwane