Experimental and numerical analysis of effect of cooling rate on thermal-microstructural response of spheroidal graphite cast iron solidification

Abstract

This work presents an experimental and numerical study of the solidification process of an eutecticspheroidal graphite cast iron (SGI). The effect of the cooling rate on the thermal–microstructuralresponse is particularly analysed. To this end, experiments as well as numerical simulations werecarried out. The experiments consisted in a solidification test in a wedge-like casting such thatdifferent cooling rates were measured at specific positions along the part. A metallographic analysiswas also performed in five locations of the sample with the aim of obtaining the number and size ofgraphite nodules at the end of the process. The numerical simulations were made usingmultinodular based and uninodular based models. These two models predicted similar results interms of cooling curves and nodule counts. Besides, good experimental–numerical agreementswere obtained for both the cooling curves and the graphite nodule counts.