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Austenitic stainless steel are used in industrial applications, mainly due to their good corrosion resistance; however, their low hardness and poor wear performance impose strong limitations in many cases. In this work, the wear behavior of the unnitrided and DC‐pulsed plasma nitrided AISI 316L stainless steel has been investigated using an Amsler‐Disc‐Machine under rolling–sliding contact conditions. The microstructure was studied by X‐ray diffraction and the worn surface, subsurface, and wear debris were analyzed by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and microhardness testing. The obtained results show that pulsed plasma nitriding improves the wear resistance of the AISI 316L and different wear mechanisms were observed depending on the normal applied load.

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An industrial DC‐pulsed plasma nitriding (DCPPN) equipment was used to obtain samples of an AISI 4140 low‐alloy steel with five different configurations: substrate, substrate + diffusion zone, diffusion zone, substrate + diffusion zone + compound layer, and diffusion zone + compound layer. The microstructures of the samples were investigated by scanning electron microscopy and X‐ray diffraction. Microhardness and tensile tests were performed, and the fracture mechanisms for the different materials were finally analyzed and discussed. The DCPPN produced an increase in the elastic modulus as well as in the yield strengths, together with a pronounce ductility loss, associated to the brittle intergranular fracture surface due to the nitride precipitation in the grain boundaries.