68th WFC - World Foundry Congress OP-30

7th - 10th February, 2008, pp. 161-166

Optimizing the Properties of Thin Wall

Austempered Ductile Iron
Mohamed M. Mourad, Khaled M. Ibrahim, Mervat M. Ibrahim and Adel A. Nofal
Central Metallurgical Research and Development Institute, (CMRDI), Cairo, Egypt

ABSTRACT capability to produce as-cast carbide free thin wall parts

(2-3 mm) 3. Production of thin-wall ductile iron castings still
Production of thin wall austempered ductile iron (TWADI) represents a daily challenge in modern foundries. Review of
components can have strength-to-density and elastic-to-density
the recent literature shows that thin-wall ductile iron has
ratios that approach those of cast aluminum, making it
been successfully produced for many years, thanks to the
theoretically possible to apply ADI in high strength light
weight parts. Therefore, development of thin wall ADI
optimization of some critical production parameters: pouring
technology is essential to permit designers for energy temperature, chemical composition, thermal conductivity of
consuming equipment to choose the most appropriate material the molding materials, type and amount of inoculating
based on material properties, and not solely on weight or material in combination with the spheroidizing method
density. In the present work, ductile iron castings with different adopted, casting design and other foundry basic
thicknesses of 2, 4, 6 and 8 mm were cast with an appreciate practices 4-5.
casting design to assure good mold filling. Short term With the commercial introduction of ADI in 1972, consistent
austempering treatment process was used to obtain thin wall efforts have been made to identify new applications of this
ADI castings. The samples of 2 and 4 mm thickness were new emerging material 6 with excellent combination of high
austenitized at 900 °C for 30 minutes followed by holding at
strength with good ductility, toughness, machinability and
350 °C and 400 °C for 10 minutes for each temperature. While,
wear resistance. However, difficulties have been encountered
the samples of 6 and 8 mm wall thickness were austenitized
at 900 °C for 30 minutes and followed by holding at 350 °C
in producing ADI thicker than 100 mm due to the segregation
and 400 °C for 30 minutes. The microstructure of TWADI of hardenabilty elements added to prevent pearlite formation.
austempered at 350 °C showed finer structure than that Such difficulty in obtaining the required austemperability
austempered at 400 °C. Tensile strength and hardness increased and the heterogeneous microstructures do not represent a
with decreasing casting wall thickness austempered at 350 °C real problem when producing thin wall ADI castings due to
due to the structure refinement effect and decreasing the volume the insignificant segregation tendency associated with rapid
fraction of retained structure in matrix. solidification of those thin wall castings. The use of ADI in
thin-wall and high strength parts has, however, been
Keywords: ADI, thin-wall, austempering treatment, mechanical
mentioned in a very limited number of references 7,8 .
properties, casting design.
Successful case was recently reported 7 , where a hollow
connecting rod for a two-cylinder car engine and a front
INTRODUCTION upright for a racing car were successfully made of thin wall
ADI, which confirms the capability of ADI to build complex
To achieve fuel economy in automotive industry, reducing
thin walled parts of high strength. With recent development
the vehicle weight has been a major research area of interest
in inoculation theory and practice, it became possible to cast
over the last few decades. Although the general trend has
thin-wall ductile iron parts completely free from carbides.
been to use low density materials (aluminum, magnesium and
Consequently, further improvements in the properties of thin-
composites) instead of cast iron and steel in the automotive
wall ADI castings could be achieved with the austempering
industry, numerous examples have been recently noted in the
process. In a recent study 8, the results of a R&D program
literature where iron castings started again to replace
on the effect of wall thickness (3-10 mm) and silicon content
aluminum in this industry. This comparison is encouraged by
(2.4-2.7%) on the properties of ADI has been reported. It has
the increased strength, ductility, stiffness, vibration damping
been shown that thin-wall ADI castings austempered at 360
capacity, as well as reduced cost 1. If the yield stress/cost
ºC and containing low silicon can exhibit ultimate strength
ratio of the various materials is compared, the new member
exceeding 1100 MPa with more than 10% elongation. This is
of the ductile iron family, the ADI, is most of the time the
an indication that austempered thin-wall ductile iron is
winner. When mechanical properties, density and cost are
becoming a logical choice for the production of small, light
included in material evaluation, ductile iron may offer more
weight and cost effective automotive components. However,
advantages than aluminum, particularly if thin wall ductile
more data about the metallurgy of thin-wall ADI castings
iron parts could be produced without further heat treatment
seems to be of practical interest. The objective of this work
processes 2. The potentials for ductile iron applications for
is to study the characteristics of thin-wall ADI castings
lightweight automotive components have been limited by the
austempered at two different temperatures.
 Fig. 1 : Microstructure of the as-cast thin wall ductile iron castings a) 2 mm b) 4 mmc) 6 mm and d) 8 mm

EXPERIMENTAL WORK Lowering the austempering temperature to 350 ºC, both

diffusion and growth rates are decreased and the structure
The test casting and its gating system were designed, as
consists of fine needles of bainitic ferrite as shown in Fig.
shown in Fig. 1. The test casting has a plate shape with
2 E-H. The ADI samples austempered at 350 ºC were noticed
dimensions of 200 mm x100 mm and 2, 4, 6 & 8 mm thickness.
to contain higher amount of unreacted austenite (Fig. 3),
The moulds were made completely of sodium silicate bonded
which may be attributed to the incomplete transformation at
sand. A 100 kg charge, which consists of 60% Sorel metal,
350 C, where the initiation and completion of transformation
40% steel scrap and the required amounts of copper and
are retarded with decreasing the austempering temperature.
ferro-silicon was melted in an induction furnace and then
Mg-treated by using Vortex method with FeSiMg alloy 9. The RETAINED AUSTENITE
molten metal was inoculated by foundry grade Fe-Si in two
steps, half of Fe-Si quantity was added in the vortex and the Figure 4 shows the variation of retained austenite content
rest was added in ladle. The chemical composition of the test with austempering temperature and casting wall thickness.
casting expressed in mass content of the alloying elements The results showed that the trend of variation of volume
was 3.69% C, 2.6% Si, 0.36% Mn, 0.016% P, 0.005% S, 0.29% fraction of retained austenite with wall thickness is similar for
Cu and 0.064% Mg. As shown in Fig. 2, the austempering both austempering temperatures (350 & 400 o C). The
treatment process was carried out by austenitizing at 900 ºC austempering temperature of 400 oC showed relatively higher
for 30 minutes and then austempering at two different retained austenite volume fraction than that at 350 oC. It is
temperatures of 350 °C and 400 °C. Both thicknesses of 2 and obvious that the volume fraction of retained austenite is
4 mm were soaked at both austempering temperatures for 10 increased gradually with increasing the wall thickness due to
minutes, while the thicker ones (6 and 8 mm) were soaked for the difference in bainitic transformation rate with changing in
30 minutes. Tensile properties of the material were determined casting wall thickness. However, there is relatively small
as per ASTM E8. The impact strength was evaluated for the difference in retained austenite for both austempering
un-notched samples as per ASTM E-23. The volume fraction temperatures at 2-mm wall thickness due to the rapid bainitic
of retained austenite was also determined using XRD. transformation rate arising from the high nodule count in this

Proceedings of 68th World Foundry Congress 162 7th-10th February 2008, Chennai, India
 Fig. 2 : Microstructure of the investigated different ADI wall thickness castings A: 2 mm, 400°C - B: 4 mm, 400°C
C: 6 mm, 400°C - D: 8 mm, 400°C, E: 2 mm, 350°C - F: 4 mm, 350°C - G: 6 mm, 350°C - H: 8 mm, 350°C

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

MICROSTRUCTURE
The microstructures of the as-cast DI castings with different
wall thicknesses are shown in Fig. 1. It is clear that the
structure of 2-mm wall thickness contains a considerable
amount of carbides, whereas the 4-mm wall thickness contains
only traces of carbides (~ 2%). Increasing the wall thickness
to 6 and 8 mm resulted in complete disappearance of carbides.
The nodule count decreased with increasing the wall
thickness with maximum count of 300 nodules/mm2 in the 2-
mm sections. Nodule count of 180, 165 and 115 were reported
in the 4, 6 and 8 mm sections respectively. Figure 4 shows
that the microstructure of the austempered samples strongly
depends on the austempering temperature as well as wall
thickness. It is noteworthy that the carbides noticed in the
as-cast 2 and 4 mm thickness samples completely dissolved
during the austenitization step of the austempering treatment.
The structure of the samples austempered at 400 C is
characterized by coarse ferrite platelets isolated by austenite
regions. The structure resulted from austempering at such
relatively higher temperature of 400 ºC showed a homogenous
Fig. 3 : Microstructure of the studied samples showing the
structure of coarse bainitic ferrite associated with relative unreacted austenite in matrix, a- TA= 350 °C b- TA=
higher diffusion and growth rate at such temperature. 400 °C

7th-10th February 2008, Chennai, India 163 Proceedings of 68th World Foundry Congress
 Fig. 4 : Effect of wall thickness and austempering temperature
Fig. 6 : Effect of wall thickness and austempering temperature
on retained austenite volume fraction
on tensile properties.

thin section. The enhanced transformation due to shortening

with lower austempering temperatures. In addition, a slight
the diffusion distances in this case may dominate structure
decrease in tensile properties was noticed with increasing
formation rather than the difference in austempering
the plate thickness from 2-mm to 8-mm. For samples
temperature.
austempered at TA= 350 ºC, the ultimate tensile strength
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES HARDNESS decreased from 1000 to 950 MPa with increasing the wall
thickness from 2-mm to 8-mm, whereas at TA= 400 ºC the
Figure 5 presents the average hardness values measured on ultimate tensile strength decreased from 825 to 775 MPa for
different thin-wall test plates. It is noticed that lower the same wall thickness. Whereas the tensile strength values
austempering temperature of 350 oC showed higher hardness showed low sensitivity to the wall thickness, the elongation
values compared to the other austempering temperature of percentage increased dramatically with increasing the wall
400 oC. At 350 oC, the average hardness values ranged from thickness (Fig. 7). It has been indicated in the literature that
330 to 380 HV20 with decreasing the wall thickness from 8- high nodule count reduces ductility and toughness 3, which
mm to 2-mm. On the other hand, at 400 oC the hardness may partially contribute to the lower ductility and toughness
values varied from 309 to 340 HV20. It is clearly shown that values reported for the plates with thinner walls. Moreover,
the hardness increases with decreasing the wall thickness the higher amounts of retained austenite in thicker sections
due to the structure refinement effect and increasing the may as well play an important role in increasing ductility and
bainitic transformation rate. toughness values of these plates. From Fig. 7, it is shown
that elongation increases with increasing the austempering
temperature from 350 ºC to 400 ºC, which is expected due to
the higher retained austenite fraction in plates austempered
at higher temperature. It is interesting to notice from Figs. 4
and 7 that the retained austenite in the structure as well as
the elongation of the 2-mm plates were not affected by the

Fig. 5 : Effect of wall thickness and austempering temperature

on 9 hardness

TENSILE PROPERTIES
The correlation between tensile strength and wall thickness
is shown in Fig. 6. The samples austempered at 350 ºC
showed higher tensile properties than those austempered at
400 ºC mainly due to the structural refinement effect and the Fig. 7 : Effect of wall thickness and austempering temperature
existence of less amounts of retained austenite associated on impact elongation percentage

Proceedings of 68th World Foundry Congress 164 7th-10th February 2008, Chennai, India
austempering temperature, whereas retained austenite and In accordance with the ASTM standard A897-06, there are 6
consequently elongation increases with increasing the wall different grades of ADI depending on their ultimate tensile
thickness of the plates. It is well established that the strength 12. In this study, the samples austempered at 350°C
austempering reaction starts by nucleation of ferritic platelets can be considered as grade 2 because they have tensile
at the graphite/matrix interface. With the rather high nodule strength more than 900 MPa and impact energy of more than
count encountered in the structures of 2-mm plates, it is 100 J; while the other samples austempered at 400 °C can be
expected that the transformation will proceed at rather high characterized as grade 1 with lower strength. Minimum
speed, independent on the austempering temperature. In required strength for this grade is 750 MPa and 110 J impact
other words, it may be assumed that the enhanced toughness.
transformation rate due to the high nodule count will mask
the influence of austempering temperature on diffusion and CONCLUSIONS
the structure and the elongation of the 2-mm thick plate will  2 mm ADI plate exhibits a homogenous ausferritic
be almost the same. structure with nodule count of 300/mm2.
IMPACT ENERGY  Retained austenite volume fraction increased gradually
The effect of wall thickness on impact energy of the (in both austempering temperatures of 350 & 400 °C)
specimens austempered at 350 °C & 400 °C is illustrated in with increasing wall thickness due to the difference in
Fig. 8. The results show that the impact energy is increased bainitic transformation rate.
gradually with increasing the wall thickness due to the  Hardness increases with decreasing casting wall
formation of more percentage of retained austenite in the thickness due to structure refinement effect.
final structure. In addition, the austempering temperature of
400 °C showed higher impact energy in all ranges of wall  The austempering temperature of 350 °C showed tensile
thicknesses than at 350 °C due to the presence of higher strength in the range of 1000 to 950 MPa with increasing
amount of retained austenite at 400 °C than at 350 °C 10. On casting wall thickness from 2 to 8 mm, while these tensile
the other hand, the nodule count plays an important role, values become lower (825 – 775 MPa) at austempering
with increasing the graphite nodule count the probability of temperature of 400 °C.
failure (decreasing the impact energy) will be increased 11.  Impact strength increased gradually with increasing wall
Moreover, by increasing the nodule count the distance thickness. The austempering temperature of 400 °C
between graphite nodules will decrease and then the resulted in higher impact strength than of 350 ºC because
resistance to impact energy will be decreased. Therefore, the of the higher retained austenite associated with 400 °C.
impact energy of the studied samples depended on:
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Proceedings of 68th World Foundry Congress 166 7th-10th February 2008, Chennai, India