A nickel-plated heat-treated steel sheet for a battery can, having a nickel layer with a nickel amount of 4.4 to 26.7 g/m.sup.2 on a steel sheet. When the Fe intensity and the Ni intensity are continuously measured along the depth direction from the surface of the nickel-plated heat-treated steel sheet for a battery can, by using a high frequency glow discharge optical emission spectrometric analyzer, the difference between the depth at which the Fe intensity exhibits a first predetermined value and the depth at which the Ni intensity exhibits a second predetermined value is less than 0.04 m.

A surface-treated steel sheet for a battery container, including a steel sheet, an iron-nickel diffusion layer formed on the steel sheet, and a nickel layer formed on the iron-nickel diffusion layer and constituting the outermost layer, wherein when the Fe intensity and the Ni intensity are continuously measured from the surface of the surface-treated steel sheet for a battery container along the depth direction with a high frequency glow discharge optical emission spectrometric analyzer, the thickness of the iron-nickel diffusion layer being the difference between the depth at which the Fe intensity exhibits a first predetermined value and the depth at which the Ni intensity exhibits a second predetermined value is 0.04 to 0.31 m; and the total amount of the nickel contained in the iron-nickel diffusion layer and the nickel contained in the nickel layer is 10.8 to 26.7 g/m.sup.2.

A surface-treated steel sheet for a battery container, including a steel sheet, an iron-nickel diffusion layer formed on the steel sheet, and a nickel layer formed on the iron-nickel diffusion layer and constituting the outermost layer, wherein when the Fe intensity and the Ni intensity are continuously measured from the surface of the surface-treated steel sheet for a battery container along the depth direction with a high frequency glow discharge optical emission spectrometric analyzer, the thickness of the iron-nickel diffusion layer being the difference between the depth at which the Fe intensity exhibits a first predetermined value and the depth at which the Ni intensity exhibits a second predetermined value is 0.04 to 0.31 m; and the total amount of the nickel contained in the iron-nickel diffusion layer and the nickel contained in the nickel layer is 4.4 g/m.sup.2 or more and less than 10.8 g/m.sup.2.

A high-silicon steel sheet is excellent in terms of punching workability and magnetic property. The high-silicon steel sheet has a chemical composition containing, by mass %, C: 0.02% or less, P: 0.02% or less, Si: 4.5% or more and 7.0% or less, Mn: 0.01% or more and 1.0% or less, Al: 1.0% or less, O: 0.01% or less, N: 0.01% or less, and the balance being Fe and inevitable impurities, a grain-boundary oxygen concentration (oxygen concentration with respect to chemical elements segregated at grain boundaries) of 30 at % or less, and a microstructure in which a degree of integration P(211) of a {211}-plane of -Fe on a surface of the steel sheet is 15% or more

P(211)=p(211)/S100(%), wherein

S=p(110)/100+p(200)/14.93+p(211)/25.88+p(310)/7.68+p(222)/1.59+p(321)/6.27+p(411)/1.55, and p(hkl): integrated intensity of a peak of X-ray diffraction of an {hkl}-plane.

A mask is used in aluminizing of superalloy turbine component, such as a turbine blade, where a region exposed to relatively high operating temperature is aluminized to form a diffusion aluminide coating and another region exposed to relatively lower operating temperatures is masked to prevent aluminizing of the masked region while concurrently being enriched in Cr and/or retaining a pre-existing Cr-content from the superalloy chemistry itself or from a previous chromizing operation.

A mask is used in aluminizing of superalloy turbine component, such as a turbine blade, where a region exposed to relatively high operating temperature is aluminized to form a diffusion aluminide coating and another region exposed to relatively lower operating temperatures is masked to prevent aluminizing of the masked region while concurrently being enriched in Cr and/or retaining a pre-existing Cr-content from the superalloy chemistry itself or from a previous chromizing operation.

A high-silicon steel strip is manufactured. A basic configuration includes partition plates arranged in the longitudinal direction of a furnace to extend from a position in the vicinity of respective gas nozzles to be in parallel to the pass line of the steel strip, and obstacles arranged to face partition-plate rear edges in the longitudinal direction of the furnace to obstruct the flow of the gas along the steel strip so that siliconizing spaces surrounded by the steel strip, the partition plates, and the obstacles are formed; and gaps between the partition-plate rear edges and the obstacles and so forth which form exhaust passages through which gas is discharged from the siliconizing spaces to other spaces inside the furnace so that treatment gas which has been sprayed from the gas nozzles onto a surface of the steel strip to flow through the siliconizing spaces is discharged through the exhaust passages.

A high-silicon steel strip is manufactured. A basic configuration includes partition plates arranged in the longitudinal direction of a furnace to extend from a position in the vicinity of respective gas nozzles to be in parallel to the pass line of the steel strip, and obstacles arranged to face partition-plate rear edges in the longitudinal direction of the furnace to obstruct the flow of the gas along the steel strip so that siliconizing spaces surrounded by the steel strip, the partition plates, and the obstacles are formed; and gaps between the partition-plate rear edges and the obstacles and so forth which form exhaust passages through which gas is discharged from the siliconizing spaces to other spaces inside the furnace so that treatment gas which has been sprayed from the gas nozzles onto a surface of the steel strip to flow through the siliconizing spaces is discharged through the exhaust passages.

Soft magnetic powder for dust cores that yields dust cores having low eddy current loss is provided. Raw material powder for soft magnetic powder comprises Fe: 60 mass % or more, a -phase stabilizing element, and an electric resistance-increasing element: 1.0 mass % or more.

A surface of an article is modified by first disposing a nickel-enriched region at the surface of a substrate, then enriching the nickel-enriched region with aluminum to form an aluminized region, and finally removing at least a portion of the aluminized region to form a processed surface of the substrate. Upon removal of this material, the roughness of the surface is reduced from a comparatively high initial roughness value to a comparatively low processed roughness value. In some embodiments, the processed roughness is less than about 95% of the initial roughness. Moreover, the sequence of steps described herein may be iterated one or more times to achieve further reduction in substrate surface roughness.