The effect of cooling rate on the microstructure of nodular cast iron

The study gives the results of the investigations concerning an effect of the casting cooling rate ( casting made from nodular iron used as a starting material for austempering to produce ADI) on the morphology of nodular graphite and metallic matrix composition. The features of the microstructure morphology were determined on a LUCIA computer program using castings of 10, 20, 40 and 60 mm diameter. It has been proved that increasing the casting diameter from 10 to 60 mm (i.e. reducing the cooling rate) increases the content of graphite from 10 to 12% and an average area of the precipitations from about 150 to 440 µm 2 , while it reduces the number of the graphite precipitations in 1 mm 2 from about 700 to 260, the mean value of the shape factor from 0,96 to 0,84, and pearlite content in the matrix from about 96% to 84%. The chemical composition seems to have no significant effect, the only exception being Mo whose presence increases in a visible way pearlite content in the matrix at each cooling rate. The obtained results, and specifically the distribution of the frequencies of occurrence of the examined morphological features of graphite, confirm the vast possibilities that the LUCIA computer program of image analysis offers in evaluation of the effect of technological parameters on cast iron microstructure.