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Gray Iron
Revised by Charles V. White, GMI Engineering and Management Institute

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Castability

Successful production of a gray iron casting depends on the fluidity of the molten metal and on the cooling rate (which is
influenced by the minimum section thickness and on section thickness variations). Casting design is often described in
terms of section sensitivity. This is an attempt to correlate properties in critical sections of the casting with the combined
effects of composition and cooling rate. All these factors are interrelated and may be condensed into a single term,
castability, which for gray iron may be defined as the minimum section thickness that can be produced in a mold cavity
with given volume/area ratio and mechanical properties consistent with the type of iron being poured.

Fluidity. Scrap losses resulting from misruns, cold shuts, and round corners are often attributed to the lack of fluidity of
the metal being poured.

Mold conditions, pouring rate, and other process variables being equal, the fluidity of commercial gray irons depends
primarily on the amount of superheat above the freezing temperature (liquidus). As the total carbon (TC) content decreases,
the liquidus temperature increases, and the fluidity at a given pouring temperature therefore decreases. Fluidity is
commonly measured as the length of flow into a spiral-type fluidity test mold. The relation between fluidity and superheat
is shown in Fig. 1 for four unalloyed gray irons of different carbon contents.

Fig. 1 Fluidity versus degree of superheat for four gray irons of different carbon contents

The significance of the relationships between fluidity, carbon content, and pouring temperature becomes apparent when it is
realized that the gradation in strength in the ASTM classification of gray iron is due in large part to differences in carbon
content ( 3.60 to 3.80% for class 20; 2.70 to 2.95% for class 60). The fluidity of these irons thus resolves into a measure
of the practical limits of maximum pouring temperature as opposed to the liquidus of the iron being poured. These practical
limits of maximum pouring temperature are largely determined by three factors:
The ability of both mold and cores to withstand the impact of molten iron, an ability that decreases as
the pouring temperature increases, thereby favoring low pouring temperatures
The fact that metal tap temperatures seldom exceed 1550 °C (2825 °F). Because ladling and reladling to
the point of pouring generally accounts for temperature losses of 55 to 85 °C (100 to 150 °F), the final
pouring temperatures seldom exceed 1450 to 1495 °C (2640 to 2720 °F), and in most instances
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maximum pouring temperatures in the range 1410 to 1450 °C (2570 to 2640 °F) are considered more
realistic
The necessity to control the overall thermal input to the mold in order to control the final desired
microstructure

It can be seen from Table 1 that because of differences in liquidus temperature, the amount of superheat (and therefore
fluidity) varies with carbon content when various compositions are cast from the same pouring temperature.

Table 1 Superheat above liquidus for 2% Si irons of various carbon contents poured at 1455 °C (2650 °F)
Liquidus Superheat
temperature above liquidus
Carbon, % °C °F °C °F
2.52 1295 2360 160 290
3.04 1245 2270 210 380
3.60 1175 2150 280 500

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