Cast iron is a class of
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...
–
carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has
carbide impurities which allow cracks to pass straight through,
grey cast iron has graphite flakes which deflect a passing crack and initiate countless new cracks as the material breaks, and
ductile cast iron has spherical graphite "nodules" which stop the crack from further progressing.
Carbon (C), ranging from 1.8 to 4 wt%, and
silicon (Si), 1–3 wt%, are the main alloying elements of cast iron. Iron alloys with lower carbon content are known as
steel.
Cast iron tends to be
brittle
A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it fractures with little elastic deformation and without significant plastic deformation. Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength. Br ...
, except for
malleable cast irons. With its relatively low melting point, good fluidity,
castability Castability is the ease of forming a quality casting. A very castable part design is easily developed, incurs minimal tooling costs, requires minimal energy, and has few rejections.Ravi, p. 2 Castability can refer to a part design or a material pro ...
, excellent
machinability Machinability is the ease with which a metal can be cut (machined) permitting the removal of the material with a satisfactory finish at low cost.Degarmo, p. 542. Materials with good machinability (free machining materials) require little power to c ...
, resistance to deformation and
wear resistance
Wear is the damaging, gradual removal or deformation of material at solid surfaces. Causes of wear can be mechanical (e.g., erosion) or chemical (e.g., corrosion). The study of wear and related processes is referred to as tribology.
Wear in ...
, cast irons have become an
engineering material with a wide range of applications and are used in
pipes
Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to:
Objects
* Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules
** Piping, the use of pipes in industry
* Smoking pipe
** Tobacco pipe
* Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circula ...
, machines and
automotive industry parts, such as
cylinder heads,
cylinder blocks and
gearbox cases. It is resistant to damage by
oxidation but is notoriously difficult to
weld.
The earliest cast-iron artefacts date to the 5th century BC, and were discovered by
archaeologists in what is now
Jiangsu in China. Cast iron was used in ancient China for warfare, agriculture, and architecture.
During the 15th century, cast iron became utilized for cannon in
Burgundy, France, and in England during the
Reformation. The amounts of cast iron used for cannons required large-scale production.
The first cast-iron bridge was built during the 1770s by
Abraham Darby III, and is known as
The Iron Bridge in
Shropshire,
England. Cast iron was also used in the
construction of buildings.
Production
Cast iron is made from
pig iron, which is the product of melting iron ore in a
blast furnace. Cast iron can be made directly from the molten pig iron or by re-melting
pig iron, often along with substantial quantities of iron, steel, limestone, carbon (coke) and taking various steps to remove undesirable contaminants.
Phosphorus and
sulfur may be burnt out of the molten iron, but this also burns out the carbon, which must be replaced. Depending on the application, carbon and silicon content are adjusted to the desired levels, which may be anywhere from 2–3.5% and 1–3%, respectively. If desired, other elements are then added to the melt before the final form is produced by
casting.
Cast iron is sometimes melted in a special type of
blast furnace known as a
cupola, but in modern applications, it is more often melted in electric
induction furnace
An induction furnace is an electrical furnace in which the heat is applied by induction heating of metal.
Induction furnace capacities range from less than one kilogram to one hundred tons, and are used to melt iron and steel, copper, aluminum ...
s or electric arc furnaces. After melting is complete, the molten cast iron is poured into a holding furnace or ladle.
Types
Alloying elements
Cast iron's properties are changed by adding various alloying elements, or
alloyants. Next to
carbon,
silicon is the most important alloyant because it forces carbon out of solution. A low percentage of silicon allows carbon to remain in solution forming iron carbide and the production of white cast iron. A high percentage of silicon forces carbon out of solution forming graphite and the production of grey cast iron. Other alloying agents,
manganese,
chromium,
molybdenum,
titanium and
vanadium counteracts silicon, promotes the retention of carbon, and the formation of those carbides. Nickel and copper increase strength, and machinability, but do not change the amount of graphite formed. The carbon in the form of
graphite results in a softer iron, reduces shrinkage, lowers strength, and decreases density.
Sulfur, largely a contaminant when present, forms
iron sulfide, which prevents the formation of graphite and increases
hardness. The problem with sulfur is that it makes molten cast iron viscous, which causes defects. To counter the effects of sulfur,
manganese is added because the two form into
manganese sulfide instead of iron sulfide. The manganese sulfide is lighter than the melt, so it tends to float out of the melt and into the
slag. The amount of manganese required to neutralize sulfur is 1.7 × sulfur content + 0.3%. If more than this amount of manganese is added, then
manganese carbide
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
forms, which increases hardness and
chilling, except in grey iron, where up to 1% of manganese increases strength and density.
Nickel is one of the most common alloying elements because it refines the
pearlite
Pearlite is a two-phased, lamellar (or layered) structure composed of alternating layers of ferrite (87.5 wt%) and cementite (12.5 wt%) that occurs in some steels and cast irons. During slow cooling of an iron-carbon alloy, pearlite form ...
and graphite structure, improves toughness, and evens out hardness differences between section thicknesses.
Chromium is added in small amounts to reduce free graphite, produce chill, and because it is a powerful
carbide stabilizer; nickel is often added in conjunction. A small amount of
tin can be added as a substitute for 0.5% chromium.
Copper is added in the ladle or in the furnace, on the order of 0.5–2.5%, to decrease chill, refine graphite, and increase fluidity.
Molybdenum is added on the order of 0.3–1% to increase chill and refine the graphite and pearlite structure; it is often added in conjunction with nickel, copper, and chromium to form high strength irons.
Titanium is added as a degasser and deoxidizer, but it also increases fluidity. 0.15–0.5%
vanadium is added to cast iron to stabilize cementite, increase hardness, and increase resistance to
wear and heat. 0.1–0.3%
zirconium helps to form graphite, deoxidize, and increase fluidity.
In malleable iron melts,
bismuth
Bismuth is a chemical element with the symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs ...
is added, on the scale of 0.002–0.01%, to increase how much silicon can be added. In white iron,
boron is added to aid in the production of malleable iron; it also reduces the coarsening effect of bismuth.
Grey cast iron
Grey cast iron is characterised by its graphitic microstructure, which causes fractures of the material to have a grey appearance. It is the most commonly used cast iron and the most widely used cast material based on weight. Most cast irons have a chemical composition of 2.5–4.0% carbon, 1–3% silicon, and the remainder iron. Grey cast iron has less
tensile strength and
shock resistance than steel, but its
compressive strength is comparable to low- and medium-carbon steel. These mechanical properties are controlled by the size and shape of the graphite flakes present in the microstructure and can be characterised according to the guidelines given by the
ASTM.
White cast iron
White cast iron displays white fractured surfaces due to the presence of an iron carbide precipitate called cementite. With a lower silicon content (graphitizing agent) and faster cooling rate, the carbon in white cast iron precipitates out of the melt as the
metastable
In chemistry and physics, metastability denotes an intermediate energetic state within a dynamical system other than the system's state of least energy.
A ball resting in a hollow on a slope is a simple example of metastability. If the ball i ...
phase
cementite, Fe
3C, rather than graphite. The cementite which precipitates from the melt forms as relatively large particles. As the iron carbide precipitates out, it withdraws carbon from the original melt, moving the mixture toward one that is closer to eutectic, and the remaining phase is the lower iron-carbon
austenite (which on cooling might transform to
martensite). These eutectic carbides are much too large to provide the benefit of what is called precipitation hardening (as in some steels, where much smaller cementite precipitates might inhibit
lastic deformationby impeding the movement of
dislocations through the pure iron ferrite matrix). Rather, they increase the bulk hardness of the cast iron simply by virtue of their own very high hardness and their substantial volume fraction, such that the bulk hardness can be approximated by a rule of mixtures. In any case, they offer
hardness at the expense of
toughness. Since carbide makes up a large fraction of the material, white cast iron could reasonably be classified as a
cermet
A cermet is a composite material composed of ceramic (cer) and metal (met) materials.
A cermet can combine attractive properties of both a ceramic, such as high temperature resistance and hardness, and those of a metal, such as the ability to und ...
. White iron is too brittle for use in many structural components, but with good hardness and abrasion resistance and relatively low cost, it finds use in such applications as the wear surfaces (
impeller
An impeller or impellor is a rotor used to increase the pressure and flow of a fluid. It is the opposite of a turbine, which extracts energy from, and reduces the pressure of, a flowing fluid.
In pumps
An impeller is a rotating componen ...
and
volute
A volute is a spiral, scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals. Four are normally to be found on an Ion ...
) of
slurry pumps, shell liners and
lifter bars in
ball mills and
autogenous grinding mills, balls and rings in
coal pulverisers, and the teeth of a
backhoe's digging bucket (although cast medium-carbon martensitic steel is more common for this application).
It is difficult to cool thick castings fast enough to solidify the melt as white cast iron all the way through. However, rapid cooling can be used to solidify a shell of white cast iron, after which the remainder cools more slowly to form a core of grey cast iron. The resulting casting, called a ''chilled casting'', has the benefits of a hard surface with a somewhat tougher interior.
High-chromium white iron alloys allow massive castings (for example, a 10-tonne impeller) to be sand cast, as the chromium reduces cooling rate required to produce carbides through the greater thicknesses of material. Chromium also produces carbides with impressive abrasion resistance. These high-chromium alloys attribute their superior hardness to the presence of chromium carbides. The main form of these carbides are the eutectic or primary M
7C
3 carbides, where "M" represents iron or chromium and can vary depending on the alloy's composition. The eutectic carbides form as bundles of hollow hexagonal rods and grow perpendicular to the hexagonal basal plane. The hardness of these carbides are within the range of 1500-1800HV.
Malleable cast iron
Malleable iron starts as a white iron casting that is then
heat treated for a day or two at about and then cooled over a day or two. As a result, the carbon in iron carbide transforms into graphite and ferrite plus carbon. The slow process allows the
surface tension to form the graphite into spheroidal particles rather than flakes. Due to their lower
aspect ratio, the spheroids are relatively short and far from one another, and have a lower
cross section
Cross section may refer to:
* Cross section (geometry)
** Cross-sectional views in architecture & engineering 3D
*Cross section (geology)
* Cross section (electronics)
* Radar cross section, measure of detectability
* Cross section (physics)
**Abs ...
vis-a-vis a propagating crack or
phonon. They also have blunt boundaries, as opposed to flakes, which alleviates the stress concentration problems found in grey cast iron. In general, the properties of malleable cast iron are more like those of
mild steel. There is a limit to how large a part can be cast in malleable iron, as it is made from white cast iron.
Ductile cast iron
Developed in 1948, ''nodular'' or ''ductile cast iron'' has its graphite in the form of very tiny nodules with the graphite in the form of concentric layers forming the nodules. As a result, the properties of ductile cast iron are that of a spongy steel without the stress concentration effects that flakes of graphite would produce. The carbon percentage present is 3-4% and percentage of silicon is 1.8-2.8%.Tiny amounts of 0.02 to 0.1%
magnesium, and only 0.02 to 0.04%
cerium added to these alloys slow the growth of graphite precipitates by bonding to the edges of the graphite planes. Along with careful control of other elements and timing, this allows the carbon to separate as spheroidal particles as the material solidifies. The properties are similar to malleable iron, but parts can be cast with larger sections.
Table of comparative qualities of cast irons
History
Cast iron and wrought iron can be produced unintentionally when smelting copper using iron ore as a flux.
The earliest cast-iron artifacts date to the 5th century BC, and were discovered by archaeologists in what is now modern
Luhe County, Jiangsu in China during the
Warring States period. This is based on an analysis of the artifact's microstructures.
Because cast iron is comparatively brittle, it is not suitable for purposes where a sharp edge or flexibility is required. It is strong under compression, but not under tension. Cast iron was invented in China in the 5th century BC and poured into molds to make ploughshares and pots as well as weapons and pagodas.
Although steel was more desirable, cast iron was cheaper and thus was more commonly used for implements in ancient China, while
wrought iron or steel was used for weapons.
The Chinese developed a method of
annealing cast iron by keeping hot castings in an oxidizing atmosphere for a week or longer in order to burn off some carbon near the surface in order to keep the surface layer from being too brittle.
In the west, where it did not become available until the 15th century, its earliest uses included cannon and shot.
Henry VIII initiated the casting of
cannon in England. Soon, English iron workers using
blast furnaces developed the technique of producing cast-iron cannons, which, while heavier than the prevailing bronze cannons, were much cheaper and enabled England to arm her navy better. The technology of cast iron was transferred from China. Al-Qazvini in the 13th century and other travellers subsequently noted an iron industry in the
Alburz Mountains to the south of the
Caspian Sea. This is close to the
silk route
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
, so that the use of technology derived from China is conceivable. The
ironmaster
An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain.
The ironmaster was usually a large ...
s of the
Weald continued producing cast irons until the 1760s, and armament was one of the main uses of irons after the
Restoration.
Cast-iron pots were made at many English blast furnaces at the time. In 1707,
Abraham Darby patented a new method of making pots (and kettles) thinner and hence cheaper than those made by traditional methods. This meant that his
Coalbrookdale furnaces became dominant as suppliers of pots, an activity in which they were joined in the 1720s and 1730s by a small number of other
coke-fired blast furnaces.
Application of the steam engine to power blast bellows (indirectly by pumping water to a waterwheel) in Britain, beginning in 1743 and increasing in the 1750s, was a key factor in increasing the production of cast iron, which surged in the following decades. In addition to overcoming the limitation on water power, the steam-pumped-water powered blast gave higher furnace temperatures, which allowed the use of higher lime ratios, enabling the conversion from charcoal, supplies of wood for which were inadequate, to
coke.
Cast-iron bridges
The use of cast iron for structural purposes began in the late 1770s, when
Abraham Darby III built
the Iron Bridge, although short beams had already been used, such as in the blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale. Other inventions followed, including one patented by
Thomas Paine. Cast-iron bridges became commonplace as the
Industrial Revolution gathered pace.
Thomas Telford adopted the material for his bridge upstream at
Buildwas
Buildwas is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England, on the north bank of the River Severn at . It lies on the B4380 road between Atcham and Ironbridge. The Royal Mail postcodes begin TF6 and TF8.
Buildwas Primary Academy is situa ...
, and then for
Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct
The Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct, near Longdon-on-Tern in Shropshire, was one of the first two canal aqueducts to be built from cast iron.
History
The cast iron canal aqueduct was re-engineered by Thomas Telford after the first construction desig ...
, a canal trough
aqueduct at
Longdon-on-Tern on the
Shrewsbury Canal
The Shrewsbury Canal (or Shrewsbury and Newport Canal) was a canal in Shropshire, England. Authorised in 1793, the main line from Trench to Shrewsbury was fully open by 1797, but it remained isolated from the rest of the canal network until 183 ...
. It was followed by the
Chirk Aqueduct
Chirk Aqueduct is a high and long navigable aqueduct that carries what is now the Llangollen Canal across the Ceiriog Valley near Chirk, on the England-Wales border, spanning the two countries.
History
The aqueduct was designed by civil engin ...
and the
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (; cy, Traphont Ddŵr Pontcysyllte) is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen in northeast Wales.
The 18-arched stone and cast iron structure is for use ...
, both of which remain in use following the recent restorations.
The best way of using cast iron for bridge construction was by using
arches
An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it.
Arches may be synonymous with vault ...
, so that all the material is in compression. Cast iron, again like masonry, is very strong in compression. Wrought iron, like most other kinds of iron and indeed like most metals in general, is strong in tension, and also
tough – resistant to fracturing. The relationship between wrought iron and cast iron, for structural purposes, may be thought of as analogous to the relationship between wood and stone.
Cast-iron beam bridges were used widely by the early railways, such as the Water Street Bridge in 1830 at the
Manchester terminus of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It was also the first railway to rely exclusively ...
, but problems with its use became all too apparent when a new bridge carrying the
Chester and Holyhead Railway
The Chester and Holyhead Railway was an early railway company conceived to improve transmission of Government dispatches between London and Ireland, as well as ordinary railway objectives. Its construction was hugely expensive, chiefly due to ...
across the
River Dee in
Chester collapsed killing five people in May 1847, less than a year after it was opened. The
Dee bridge disaster was caused by excessive loading at the centre of the beam by a passing train, and many similar bridges had to be demolished and rebuilt, often in
wrought iron. The bridge had been badly designed, being trussed with wrought iron straps, which were wrongly thought to reinforce the structure. The centres of the beams were put into bending, with the lower edge in tension, where cast iron, like
masonry, is very weak.
Nevertheless, cast iron continued to be used in inappropriate structural ways, until the
Tay Rail Bridge
The Tay Bridge ( gd, Drochaid-rèile na Tatha) carries the railway across the Firth of Tay in Scotland between Dundee and the suburb of Wormit in Fife. Its span is . It is the second bridge to occupy the site.
Plans for a bridge over the Tay t ...
disaster of 1879 cast serious doubt on the use of the material. Crucial lugs for holding tie bars and struts in the Tay Bridge had been cast integral with the columns, and they failed in the early stages of the accident. In addition, the bolt holes were also cast and not drilled. Thus, because of casting's draft angle, the tension from the tie bars was placed on the hole's edge rather than being spread over the length of the hole. The replacement bridge was built in wrought iron and steel.
Further bridge collapses occurred, however, culminating in the
Norwood Junction rail accident of 1891. Thousands of cast-iron rail
underbridges were eventually replaced by steel equivalents by 1900 owing to the widespread concern about cast iron under bridges on the rail network in Britain.
File:Ironbridge 6.jpg, The Iron Bridge over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale, England (finished 1779)
File:Eglinton Castle & Tournament Bridge 1884.jpg, The Eglinton Tournament Bridge (completed c1845), North Ayrshire, Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
, built from cast iron
File:Image-Taybridge01.jpg, Original Tay Bridge from the north (finished 1878)
File:Tay bridge down.JPG, Fallen Tay Bridge from the north
Buildings
Cast-iron
columns, pioneered in mill buildings, enabled architects to build multi-storey buildings without the enormously thick walls required for masonry buildings of any height. They also opened up floor spaces in factories, and sight lines in churches and auditoriums. By the mid 19th century, cast iron columns were common in warehouse and industrial buildings, combined with wrought or cast iron beams, eventually leading to the development of steel-framed skyscrapers. Cast iron was also used sometimes for decorative facades, especially in the United States, and the
Soho district of New York has numerous examples. It was also used occasionally for complete prefabricated buildings, such as the historic
Iron Building in
Watervliet, New York.
Textile mills
Another important use was in
textile mills. The air in the mills contained flammable fibres from the cotton,
hemp, or
wool being spun. As a result, textile mills had an alarming propensity to burn down. The solution was to build them completely of non-combustible materials, and it was found convenient to provide the building with an iron frame, largely of cast iron, replacing flammable wood. The first such building was at
Ditherington in
Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
Many other warehouses were built using cast-iron columns and beams, although faulty designs, flawed beams or overloading sometimes caused building collapses and structural failures.
During the Industrial Revolution, cast iron was also widely used for frame and other fixed parts of machinery, including spinning and later weaving machines in textile mills. Cast iron became widely used, and many towns had
foundries
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...
producing industrial and agricultural machinery.
See also
*
Cast-iron architecture
*
Cast-iron cookware
Heavy-duty cookware made of cast iron is valued for its heat retention, durability, ability to maintain high temperatures for longer time duration, and non-stick cooking when properly seasoned. Seasoning is also used to protect bare cast iron fr ...
*
Ironwork
Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil, or architectural feature made of iron, especially one used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork: wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was the ...
— artisan metalwork (for architectural elements, garden features, and ornamental objects)
*
Ironworks — a place where iron is worked (including historical sites)
*
Meehanite
*
Sand casting
*
Steel
*
Wrought iron
References
Further reading
* Harold T. Angus, ''Cast Iron: Physical and Engineering Properties'', Butterworths, London (1976)
*
John Gloag
John Gloag (10 August 1896 - 17 July 1981) was an English writer in the fields of furniture design and architecture.
Gloag also wrote science fiction novels. Gloag served with the Welsh Guards during the First World War, and was invalided home af ...
and Derek Bridgwater, ''A History of Cast Iron in Architecture'', Allen and Unwin, London (1948)
* Peter R Lewis, ''Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879'', Tempus (2004)
* Peter R Lewis, ''Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847'', Tempus (2007)
* George Laird, Richard Gundlach and Klaus Röhrig, ''Abrasion-Resistant Cast Iron Handbook'', ASM International (2000)
External links
Metallurgy of Cast Irons, Cambridge UniversityForensic engineering:the Tay Bridge disasterSpanish cast-iron bridges
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cast Iron
Building materials
Casting (manufacturing)
Chinese inventions
English inventions
Ferrous alloys
Garden features
Iron
Metalworking