94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Met. Alloy
Sec. Mechanical Properties of Metals
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/ftmal.2025.1576402
Thermal analysis as a control tool for Ductile Iron Production
Provisionally accepted- Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
In the production of ductile iron, it is essential to control the chemical composition of melting, as this directly affects mechanical properties and final microstructure of the fabricated parts. However, this may not be sufficient. Physical phenomena such as nucleation potential, eutectic solidification, and recalescence provide useful information for production of ductile iron. Thermal analysis is a tool that has emerged to meet this need. In this study, thermal sensor equipment is employed to capture realtime samples of the molten metal to analyze its cooling curve. This information is used to determine physical state of the material during the various subprocesses required to produce ductile iron parts. Nucleation potential is the most influential thermal analysis property in ductile iron production. Controlling it helps assess the effects of nodularization and inoculation. Additionally, it plays a key role in optimizing costs and product quality. The high recalescence and solidification variability indicate a predominantly hyper-eutectic behavior, suggesting that reducing inoculant use could improve quality by preventing shrinkage defects, primary graphite formation, and carbides while lowering costs.
Keywords: Thermal analysis, Cooling curve, Ductile iron, Nodularity, nucleation, recalescence
Received: 13 Feb 2025; Accepted: 10 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sotomayor, Quilumba and Proaño. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Oscar Sotomayor, Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.