A Solidification Time-Based Method for Rapid Evaluation of the Mechanical Properties of Grey Iron Castings

Designers often need to know the mechanical properties of different zones of a casting. This is because such properties are often very different from those declared in the standard classification of the cast iron used or derived from separately cast specimens. At constant chemical composition, the mechanical properties of a casting will depend on the microstructure, which in turn is ruled by the cooling rate at each point of the component. In this work, a method developed to rapidly predict mechanical properties in each zone of a cast iron casting, which uses only results from moulding–solidification numerical simulation, is proposed. Such approach, applied to real cast irons components, was found to be in tune with experimental results.