  Ion nitriding and ion carburising by plasma discharges are promising
techniques in order to modify the surface of austenitic steels. Plasma
treatments improve mechanical properties, e.g., hardness and wear resistance.
Indeed, these techniques do not change the natural austenitic properties, like
corrosion resistance. Hidden parameters of the system are very important in
order to do a good characterization and a good experimental reproducibility. In
this work a new cathode design has been done and it is placed in a new plasma
reactor. The electric field edge effect has been discarded in the austenitic
samples thanks to a special lodging procedure.
  After an experimental validation of this new set-up, a numerical simulation
has been carried out. Temperature distribution has been analyzed using the
cathode-molecular nitrogen collision method. Under these assumptions, reactor
cooling is a key issue. This simulation has been done after the resolution of
the Laplace equation with the parallel Jacobi method.
  Finally, using optical emission spectroscopy it has been verified that the
heat transfer mechanism is the conduction and the experimental data have been
compared with simulation data.
