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Low-temperature nitriding of steel or iron can produce an expanded austenite phase, which is a solid solution of a large amount of nitrogen dissolved interstitially in fcc lattice. It is characteristic that the nitogen depth profiles in expanded austenite exhibit plateau-type shapes. Such behavior cannot be considered with a standard analytic solution for diffusion in a semi-infinite solid and a new approach is necessary. We formulate a model of interdiffusion in viscoelastic solid (Maxwellmodel) during the nitriding process. It combines themass conservation and Vegard's rule with the Darken bi-velocity method. The model is formulated in any dimension, i.e., a mixture is included in Rn, n = 1, 2, 3. For the system in one dimension, n = 1, we transform a differential-algebraic system of 5 equations to a differential system of 2 equations only, which is better to study numerically and analytically. Such modification allows the formulation of effective mixed-type boundary conditions. The resulting nonlinear strongly coupled parabolic-elliptic differential initial-boundary Stefan type problem is solved numerically and a series of simulations is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, there have been tremendous advances in the computation of diffusion and today many key properties of materials can be accurately predicted by modelling and simulations. In this paper, we present, for the first time, comprehensive studies of interdiffusion in three dimensions, a model, simulations and experiment. The model follows from the local mass conservation with Vegard's rule and is combined with Darken's bi-velocity method. The approach is expressed using the nonlinear parabolic–elliptic system of strongly coupled differential equations with initial and nonlinear coupled boundary conditions. Implicit finite difference methods, preserving Vegard's rule, are generated by some linearization and splitting ideas, in one- and two-dimensional cases. The theorems on the existence and uniqueness of solutions of the implicit difference schemes and the consistency of the difference methods are studied. The numerical results are compared with experimental data for a ternary Fe-Co-Ni system. A good agreement of both sets is revealed, which confirms the strength of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]