Material Characterization of Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI) Produced by a Sustainable Continuous Casting–Heat Treatment Process

TLDR: In this paper, the authors explored the new processing technology for direct manufacturing of lightweight austempered ductile iron (ADI) casting in a permanent mold, which is based on the innovative integrated approach toward casting and heat-treatment process.

Abstract: Selecting a suitable manufacturing process is one way of achieving sustainability of a product by diminishing energy consumption during its production cycle and improving material efficiency. The article attempts to explore the new processing technology for direct manufacturing of lightweight austempered ductile iron (ADI) casting in a permanent mold. The new processing technology is based on the innovative integrated approach toward casting and heat-treatment process. In this technology, the ductile iron samples obtained using the permanent mold are first austenized immediately after solidification process followed by austempering heat treatment in the fluidized bed and then air cooled at room temperature to obtain ADI material. The influence of austempering time on the microstructural characteristics, mechanical properties, and strain-hardening behavior of ADI was studied. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses were performed to correlate the mechanical properties with microstructural characteristics. It was observed that the mechanical properties of resulting ADI samples were influenced by the microstructural transformations and varied retained austenite volume fractions obtained due to different austempering time. The results indicate that the strain-hardening behavior of the ADI material is influenced by the carbon content of retained austenite.