Abstract:
Compacted Graphite Iron (CGI), the latest cast iron, was classified as one type of cast irons in 1965according to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) A-247. Throughout thedevelopment of ductile iron, CGI was initially found by adding insufficient magnesium into themelt. Because it was difficult to consistant manufacture CGI in the early period, it did not get muchattention from foundry industry. However, CGI reenters to the consideration of the automobile partmanufacturer after many researchers studied and found that CGI performs good properties inbetween those of gray iron and those of ductile iron.ASTM A 842-85 determines that an acceptable graphite formation in microscope of CGI shall nothave flake graphite and must contain 80% minimun compacted graphite. This is the reason why theproduction procedure still be know-how. The most of CGI castings are made in the countries whichhave high technology of cast iron production. In the present, no foundries in Thailand have enoughknowledge to cast CGI for sale. Thus this research focused on the study of processing data tosupport Thai foundry industry in the future.This research determined the magnesium range for satisfactory CGI that produced using onlyferrosilicon magnesium by sandwich method and studied the effect of tapping and pouringtemperature to the graphite shape morphology. For in-mold treatment, the effect of pouring rate onmicrostructure was studied. The experimental results show an optimum magnesium range inbetween 0.011-0.023%wt. When tapping temperature was increased, more magnesium fading,spheroidal graphite particles were effectively reduced. The chance of flake graphite formation wasincreased when the residual Mg level was not enough. Too high or too low pouring temperatureresult in flake formation at 0.011%wt residual magnesium and over 20% nodularity at 0.023%wt,respectively.Too low pouring rate not only increases the nodularity of casting but also increases the opportunityof flake graphite formation in the later. With in-mold treatment, a range for producing compactedgraphite iron using FeSi4.6% is in between 0.3-0.5% bulk weight.