Cast Iron Technology

Despite the decline in the cast iron industry, cast irons remain important commercially. This book focuses on the technological advances that have taken place in solidification science and founding techniques during the same period and demonstrates their importance to the new founding industry. Following an introduction to the cast iron family and its wide range of engineering properties, the question of cupola or electric melting and the theory and practice of the liquid iron treatments, desulphurization, innoculation and spheroidization, are discussed. Solidification science is then used to explain how cast iron structures form, and the use of thermal analysis in the foundry is highlighted. A description of the heat treatment and joining of cast irons is given, with particular emphasis on austempered irons. The book concludes with a discussion of advances in founding techniques and an examination of typical cast iron microstructures.