Effect of microstructural refinement on ductility deterioration of high silicon ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron caused by cyclic heating

This investigation applies cyclic heating and cooling to elucidate the effect of microstructural refinement on the tensile elongation deterioration of ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron. In order to eliminate the oxidation factor, the cyclic heating/cooling test was performed in a 1.33 ∼ 0.133 Pa ambient vacuum atmosphere with cyclic heating at a maximum temperature of 1023 K. Severe embrittlement accompanied by integranular fracture occurred after the ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron was subjected to a certain number of heating and cooling cycles. A fair amount of inevitable inclusion particles were found to agglomerate in the eutectic cell boundary region, and so the cyclic heating induced embrittlement can be recognized to be strongly dependent on the solidification cooling rate of the materials. Based on experimental evidence, the cracking evolution can be divided into three steps: (1) crack initiation from the vicinity of the eutectic cell boundary at the surface, (2) crack linking and major crack formation, and (3) major crack inward extension. Cyclic heating cracks are mainly initiated at the eutectic cell boundary where a fair amount of MgO inclusions dispersed, and consequently propagated along the annealed eutectic cell boundary. While investigating the plastic deformation behaviors around the above mentioned MgO inclusions pertaining to the crack initiation and crack propagation, typical etch pit evidence was observed in the vicinity of the cell boundary area.