Effect of Section Thickness On The Microstructure And Hardness Of Gray Cast Iron (A Simulation Study)

Author to whom correspondence should be made. Abstract- Cast iron being a material very sensitive to section has been a choice of automotive industries because of its versatile properties. This study was aimed to examine the effect of section thickness on microstructure of grey cast iron. Grey cast iron micro-structure consists of flakes of graphite with a matrix of pearlite or ferrite. It was found in this study that size of the graphite flake changes with the change in cooling rate. Flake size affects the properties like hardness, UTS and damping capacity of grey iron. It was observed that small section thickness contains small graphite flakes, whereas thick sections consist of larger graphite flakes. Hardness of thin section was also found greater than thick section. The hardness results obtained from Pro-cast simulation were validated and it was found that simulation results are in quite agreement with experimental results. This paper also provides the heat transfer model of Pro-cast and its sequential steps to follow for simulation of grey iron solidification