Engaged Expert Leads Creation of Strain-Life Fatigue Cast Iron Database

Element’s Engaged Expert John Tartaglia, Ph.D. led the creation of an industry-advancing database categorizing the properties of cast irons. The strain-life fatigue database for cast iron was created in 2013, becoming the first of its kind and paving the way for the modernization of the casting industry. 

The database was constructed using support from The American Foundry Society (AFS) and the US Department of Energy (DOE).  The unique database was created by subjecting a wide variety of cast irons in multiple grades to different testing programs in order to obtain the strain-life fatigue properties of these cast irons. 

With materials such as gray, ductile, compacted graphite, and white cast irons, the database holds monotonic and cyclic property data, chemical analysis and microstructural data. The database was created with the intent to assist designers in the selection of the best materials for their purposes in order to create superior products.  Recently, the database was expanded to include cast aluminum alloys and steels.

The following paper is a review of the database contents and layout.  This paper analyzes and compares the data across section size and strength-ductility combinations for four ductile iron grades.  In general, the trends noted in the ductile cast iron results were expected; Modulus and Poisson’s ratio were the same for all the conditions.  Monotonic strength consistently decreased as elongation and ferrite content increased. The higher strength grades and conditions showed greater high cycle fatigue (HCF) resistance and decreased low cycle fatigue (LCF) resistance.  While heat treatments had a mixed effect on monotonic properties, in most conditions the heat treatment produced greater low cycle fatigue lives for conditions with high-ductility.

Click the article below to read more about John Tartaglia’s influential work with this database for cast irons.