Investigation Of The Chip Formation Of Austempered Grey Iron.

By a heat treatment process the strength and thus the field of applications of Grey Cast Iron (GI) can be increased to a range which is comparable to Compacted Graphite Iron (CGI). The microstructure of the resulting material consists of austenite and acicular ferrite. This material is named Austempered Grey Iron (AGI). Until now the material has not yet made its way to widespread use, due to the unknown machinability. For an economical use the machinability of the material must be at least at the level of CGI. This work deals with the chip formation, as an evaluation criterion for the machinability and represents a first step towards a comprehensive assessment of machining of AGI materials. To investigate the chip formation chip roots of three different AGI grades, a GI and a CGI were produced in a turning process. The chip roots were prepared to analyse the deformation of the microstructure during the chip formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]