Evolution of shrinkage with carbon equivalent and inoculation in ductile cast irons

Studying how shrinkage porosity changes size when varying the composition of ductile irons is still of interest for manufacturing sound cast parts and defining optimised processing conditions. Usual changes in carbon and silicon contents strongly affect shrinkage, so that a detailed analysis of the effect of alloy composition and of inoculation level on porosity was carried out in the present study. Two test castings have been used to evaluate the extent of porosity formed using different compositions and inoculation levels. It has been observed that increasing carbon content from hypoeutectic to near-eutectic compositions reduces the amount of defects while a further increase of shrinkage porosity is detected for hypereutectic compositions. Thus, a minimum in shrinkage tendency exists for slightly hypereutectic compositions. Although inoculation decreases shrinkage, the relevance of this parameter varies as a function of carbon equivalent.