Marcel A.J. SOMERS

Marcel A.J. Somers received his M.Sc. (1985) and his Doctor’s degree (1989) from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. After employments in industry (Philips) and an additional 7 years as assistant professor at Delft University of Technology, he was appointed full professor of at the Technical University of Denmark in 1997, where he has headed a university group in Materials and Surface Engineering for more than 20 years. He has co-authored more than 350 contributions to journals, books and conference proceedings and is co-inventor of about 20 patents. He was awarded several prizes for his research and innovation, among which the ASM European Lecturer Award (1999), the Alex Foss gold medal (2014) and the IFHTSE medal (2019). He is Fellow of ASM International (2016) and was knighted in 2022 by the Queen of Denmark.

Nitriding and Nitrocarburizing; An Interwoven Braid of Science and Innovation

Nitriding and nitrocarburizing constitute a class of surface engineering methods whereby a steel workpiece is intentionally alloyed with nitrogen/carbon at elevated temperature, in order to prolong the lifetime under conditions of corrosion, fatigue and wear, or combinations thereof. The lecture covers some highlights of the part of the author’s career that involves research and innovation in gaseous nitriding and nitrocarburizing of iron and steel, ranging from fundamental to applied and from experimental to numerical.

The following topics are touched upon:

- Compound-layer formation during ferritic nitrocarburizing

- Expanded austenite on nitrided and nitrocarburized stainless steels

- High-temperature solution nitriding for materials innovation

- Nitriding of additively manufactured (stainless) steel components.