AUSTEMPERED DUCTILE IRON

ADI

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AUSTEMPERED DUCTILE IRON

Question: What is Austempered Ductile Iron?

Answer: It is a heat treated ductile iron with the following properties:

• excellent wear resistance
• good elongation
• high impact strength
• high tensile strength
• high hardness / hardenability

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 WHY CHOOSE ADI

Question: What material offers the design engineer the best combination of low cost, design
flexibility, good machinability, high strength-to-weight ratio, good toughness, wear resistance and
fatigue strength?

Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI)

Why? Because ADI offers this superior combination of properties and it can be cast like any other
member of the Ductile Iron family, thus offering all the production advantages of a conventional Ductile
Iron casting.
Disadvantage: It needs to be put through a special heat – treatment process

However, once it has been subjected to the austempering process, it possesses mechanical properties
that are superior to conventional ductile iron, cast and forged aluminium and many cast and forged steels

Advantage: ADI weighs only 2.4 times more than aluminium and is 2.3 times stiffer it is also 10% less
dense than steel.

For a typical component, ADI costs 20% less per unit weight than steel and half that of aluminium .

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 ADI APPLICATIONS

ADI (Austempered Ductile Iron) is now established in many major markets:

•Agricultural Equipment
•Construction Equipment
•Gears / Powertrain
•Heavy truck / Trailers
•Light vehicles and Buses
•Mining and Forestry Equipment
•Railways
•Energy Generation
•Farm and Oil field Machinery
•Defence
•Conveyor Equipment and Tooling
•Sporting goods

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 TYPICAL MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF ADI

ASTM Specification A897-90 / A897M-90 for Austempered Ductile Irons

Minimum
Impact
Minimum Yield Elongation Hardness**
Energy*
Grade Tensile Strength Strength
Mpa Mpa % Joules BHN
850/550/10 850 550 10 100 269 - 321
1050/700/7 1050 700 7 80 302 - 363
1200/850/4 1200 850 4 60 341 - 444
1400/1100/1 1400 1100 1 35 388 - 477
1600/1300/- 1600 1300 *** *** 444 - 555

* Values obtained using unnotched Charpy test bars at 2°C. The values are the average of 3
highest of 4 tested samples
** Hardness is not a mandatory specification and is shown for information only
*** Elongation and Impact specifications are not required

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 ADI CHEMISTRY

The chemical composition of the base iron for ADI is similar to that of the conventional
ductile iron, typical metal chemistry is approximately:

TC Si S P Mn
% % % % %
3.6 – 3.8 1.8 – 2.2 0.015 max 0.06 max 0.3 max

Alloying elements such as Cu, Ni and Mo are added to the base composition individually or in combination.

(these elements are used not to increase strength, impact or hardness values, but to enhance the heat – treatability).

Trace elements should be kept to a minimum as they will have a detremental effect on the final ADI properties

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ELEMENTAL EFFECTS ON ADI PROPERTIES
Carbon Increasing Carbon in the range 3 to 4% increases the tensile strength but has negligible effect on
elongation and hardness. Carbon should be controlled within the range 3.6 to 3.8%.
Silicon Silicon is one of the most important elements in ADI because it promotes graphite formation, decreases
the solubility of Carbon in austenite, increases the eutectoid temperature and inhibits the formation of
bainitic carbide. Increasing the Silicon content increases the impact strength of ADI and lowers the
ductile – brittle transition temperature. Silicon should be controlled in the range of 2.4 to 2.8%
Manganese Manganese can both be a beneficial and a harmful element.It strongly increases hardenability, but
during solidification it segregates to grain boundaries where it forms carbides and retards the
autempering reaction. As a result, for castings with either low nodule counts or section sizes greater
than 19mm manganese segregation to grain boundaries can be sufficiently high to produce shrinkage,
carbides and unstable austenite. These microstructural defects and inhomogeneities decreases
machinability and reduces mechanical properties. To improve properties and reduce the sensitivity of
the ADI to section size and nodule count, it is advisable to restrict the Manganese level in the ADI to
less than 0.3%. The use of high purity pig iron in the ADI charge offers the twin advantages of diluting
the Manganese in the steel scrap to desirable levels and controlling undesirable trace elements.
Copper Up to 0.8% Copper may be added to ADI to increase hardenability, Copper has significant effect on
tensile properties, but increases ductility at autempering temperatures below 350°C.
Nickel Up to 2% Nickel may be used to increase the hardenabilty of ADI. For austempering temperatures
below 350°C Nickel reduces tensile strength slightly, but increases ductility and fracture toughness.
Molybdenum Molybdenum is the most potent hardenability agent in ADI and may be required in heavy section
castings to prevent the formation of pearlite, however, both tensile strength and ductility decrease as the
Molybdenum content is increased beyond that required for hardenability. This deterioration in properties
is probably caused by the segregation of Molybdenum to cell boundaries and the formation of carbides.
The level of Molybdenum should be restricted to not more than 0.2% in heavy section castings

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 MICROSTRUCTURAL COMPARISON OF CONVENTIONAL,
AUSTEMPERED DI AND LOW ALLOYED DUCTILE IRON

Refaey, A., Fatahalla, N., Effect of Microstructure on Properties of

ADI and Low Alloyed Ductile Iron, Journal of Materials Science 38
(2003) 351-362
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 STRUCTURE TRANSFORMATION DURING HEAT TREATMENT
CYCLE
Yescas MA, Bhadeshia HKDH, MacKay DJ., Estimation
of the amount of retained austenite in austempered
ductile irons using neural networks. Mater Sci Eng A,
Struct
Mater: Prop Microstruct Process 2001;311: 162– 173
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Hanzlíková, K., Věchet, S., Kohout, J., Zapletal, J.,
The Optimization of the Isothermal Transformation
Dwell of the ADI Obtained at Transformation
Temperature of 380 °C, Materials Science Forum
Vols. 567-568 (2008) pp 337-340
 STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN RELATION TO TREATMENT TIME

Erdogan, M., Kilicli, V., Demir, B., Transformation

Daber, S., Rao, P., Formation of characteristics of ductile iron austempered from intercritical
strain-induced martensite in austenitizing temperature ranges, J Mater Sci (2009) 44:
austempered ductile 1394-1403
iron, J Mater Sci (2008) 43:357–367

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MECHANICAL PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT
Daber, S., Rao,
Daber, S., Rao, P., P., Formation
Formation of of strain-
strain-induced induced
martensite in martensite in
austempered austempered
ductile iron, J ductile iron, J
Mater Sci (2008) Mater Sci
43:357–367 (2008) 43:357–
367

Cheng, C.,
Vuorinen, J.J.,
Study on the
Fatigue Properties
of Austemperd
Ductile Irons,
Advanced
Materials Research
Vols. 4-5 (1997) pp
227-232

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THE EFFECT OF NODULARITY ON PROPERTIES

Martínes-Madrid, M., Acosta, M.A.,

Torres-Acosta, A., Rodríguez-T, R.,
Castaño, V.M., Effects of
Austempering Temperature on
Fatigue Crack Rate Propagation in
a Series of Modified (Cu, Ni and/or
Mo) Nodular Irons, Journal of
Materials Engineering and
Performance, Vol. 11(6) December
2002-651-658

Nodularity is important!

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IMPACT ENERGY

Mikhail V. Riabov, Yury S. Lerner, and Mohammed F. Fahmy, Effect of Low Temperatures on Charpy
Impact Toughness of Austempered Ductile Irons Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance (2002) 11:496–503

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RELATIONSHIP OF MACHINABILITY TO STRENGTH
FOR DIFFERENT METALS

U. S¸eker, H. Hasirci / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 173 (2006) 260–268

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 MODULUS OF ELASTICITY

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 RECOMMENDATIONS
• Preconditioners – The quality of the raw materials used in the base charge
will have a direct effect on nodule count and nodularity, it has been found that
when making ADI grades frequently it is necessary to use a good
preconditioner to insure that the nucleation potential of the base metal will
give a ductile iron with the required properties
• Nodularisers – selection is based on charge materials, if a high proportion of
steel and returns are used then a MgFeSi with a high RE content is required
• Inoculants – dependant on casting section a high nodule count and good
nodularity is required the correct base level residual Magnesium will need a
high nucleation potential to work with the inoculant package, it has been
found that a two stage inoculation process will give the desired final
structures needed for a good base iron that can be heat treated produce ADI
with the correct properties.

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RECOMMENDATIONS
• Well nucleated Base Iron
Thermal Analysis
General Parameters to Look For :-
R – Recalesence is a measure of carbide
potential. A value between 2-7 deg. C is
acceptable. A high R (above 7 deg. C) indicates
chill. A low value such as 1 deg. C or lower can
indicate over inoculation.

LET – is a measure of nucleation. In general

the higher the LET value the better the iron
quality.

G1 – Is when austenite is being precipitated. In

SG irons G1 should be 1% in the final treated
and inoculated iron.

G3 – Is a vitally important area. This is where

pure graphite is being precipitated and in SG
this is very important. A value of 70% of higher
is required in the final treated and inoculated
iron.
LET – ST (Graphitisation Time) – This value indicates the total time that graphite is being grown. Again this value
should be as long as possible.

ST – This angle is the final stage of solidification and can give an indication of grain boundary activity. Generally
speaking a tighter ST angle is desirable.

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CASE STUDY
Shift fork
Metal treatment
PreseedTM Preconditioner - (Furnace preconditioner)
Elmag® 5800 nodulariser - 1.1% (nodulariser)
Barinoc® inoculant - 0.3% (stage 1)*
Reseed® inoculant - 0.1% (stage 2)**

Thermal Curve from treated iron

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EXAMPLES OF ADI CASTINGS

John R. Keough, ADI Development in North America-revisisted 2002, 2002 World Conf. On ADI

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