Study of the fracture of ferritic ductile cast iron under different loading conditions

Abstract This work is a continuation of the studies presented in a recent paper by the authors, where the fracture surfaces of pearlitic ductile cast iron under different loading conditions were exhaustively analysed. In this study, fracture surfaces of ferritic ductile cast iron (or ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron) generated under impact, bending and fatigue loading conditions were characterised and compared. The fracture surfaces were characterised qualitatively and quantitatively from the observation under a scanning electron microscope. The fracture mechanisms in each case were identified. For impact tests, as test temperature increases, the dominant fracture mechanism changes from brittle to ductile. For bending tests, a fully ductile fracture micromechanism dominates the surface. In fatigue tests, the surface shows a mix of flat facets that appear to be cleavage facets and ductile striations, but the typical fatigue striations are not easily found on the fracture surface. Methodologies for the determination of the macroscopic direction of main crack propagation in both ductile and brittle failure modes are proposed. These allow identifying main crack propagation direction with good approximation. The results are potentially useful to identify the nature of loading conditions in a fractured specimen of ferritic spheroidal graphite cast iron. The authors believe that it is necessary to extend the methodologies proposed in samples with different geometry and size, before they can be used to provide additional information to the classical fractographic analysis.