Aging Behavior of Intercritically Quenched Ductile Iron

Although extensive aging and strain aging (bake hardening, BH) studies have been carried out on dual-phase steels, the aging behavior of the dual matrix structure (DMS) ductile iron (DI), as a potential way to improve its mechanical properties, has not been addressed until now. This research was designed to study the aging behavior of DI with a ferrite-martensite matrix structure. DMS-DI with a martensite volume fraction of 30% was produced by intercritical austenitizing at 785 °C followed by quenching in water to room temperature. Aging treatments were carried out without pre-straining at aging temperatures of 140, 170, and 220 °C for 2–10,000 min. DMS-DI was investigated by light optical microscopy (LOM) for unaged samples and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for selected samples after aging treatments. The effect of aging conditions on the mechanical properties were investigated. Microhardness measurements for ferrite and martensite were also examined as a function of aging conditions. The increase in yield strength due to aging was determined. The results indicate that the aging conditions have a small effect on the ultimate tensile strength UTS. It is shown that the yield strength increased to a maximum value of 45 MPa (~11% increase) after aging for particular time, which is found to be dependent on the aging temperature. The peak aging response is followed by a decrease in yield strength, which is observed to be attributed to martensite tempering as confirmed by microhardness measurements.