Högskolan i Skövde

The manufacturing process gives cast iron castings properties which are dependent on component design, metallurgy and casting method. Factors such as local wall thickness influences the coarseness and type of microstructure and the castings will have local properties depending on the local metallurgical and thermal history. The stress/strain behaviour of cast materials is typically determined by performing a tensile test in a tensile test machine. The deformation behaviour will normally be determined by two mechanisms, namely, elastic and plastic phenomena. The plastic behaviour is based on dislocation movements in the lattice. Commonly, the deformation history of cast iron involves elastic, plastic and crack phases. The cast iron material has a complex microstructure and first order equations cannot be used to predict the deformation during loading. Until methods have been developed, the characterization of complex microstructure materials such as cast iron has to be determined by use of empirical methods. The empirical methods have to couple the internal microstructure and composition of the material with deformation phenomena during loading. The paper will show a method to characterize tensile test curves of cast iron materials which can be used to couple deformation phenomena with for example microstructure. The equations are aimed to make the tensile test curve ready for curve fitting and optimization in two steps. Each stress/strain curve is like a finger print of the material and requires well performed tests and some advices are given. The paper also wants to encourage researchers and people working with tensile testing to get out more of their effort to measure strength of cast iron materials and connect the result to the microstructure of the specimens.