Patent 7208052 was granted and assigned to Rolls-Royce on April, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A carburizing process for increasing the hardness of a case region of a steel component. In one form the application includes plating the outer surface of a stainless steel component with nickel prior to carburizing. One component includes a stainless steel object having a hardened case substantially free of continuous phase grain boundary carbides.