On 06/09/2020 12:40, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Sun, 6 Sep 2020 12:30:50 +0100, newshound
wrote:


Yes, you would certainly get significant nitride formation. Some
brittleness might be tolerable in a compression structure. But I still
think it would be interesting to try on a test piece, followed by a
standard extreme bend test. I'd have some confidence if it survived that.

Not me. What if the brittleness only develops over a period of weeks
or months later? This would really need a long-term test under
carefully controlled conditions before we could place any faith in its
application in structural work. And I'm assuming that's already been
done at some time and the results found wanting.

Maybe if you kept it at high temperatures, but that's just not the way
nitrogen behaves in steel at ambient temperature.

Case hardening and gas nitriding have been around for a long time.