The Influence of Alloying Elements on Chill Formation in CGI

Abstract

The influence of alloying elements on the chill formation in Compacted Graphite Iron (CGI) is investigated. Chill wedges cast in an industrial foundry were used to investigate the chill formation. A total number of 19 chemical compositions were studied, including three trials of varying nodularity treatment level; four trials of varying copper content; four trials of varying silicon content; four trials of varying tin content and four trials of varying carbide promoter content. Three wedges were cast for each alloy composition, of which one was used for measuring the temperature at three different heights in the wedge. Contrary to some previous reports, the results indicate that low-nodularity CGI is not more prone to chill formation (columnar white) than high-nodularity CGI. Trends regarding the effect of alloying elements on chill formation are shown to generally be in agreement with previous work on spheroidal graphite iron and lamellar graphite iron. Most of the samples also show carbide formation in centre line areas of the wedge (inverse chill), this occurrence is also discussed in the paper.