Effect of Material Composition and Processes Parameters on Micro-Structure and Mechanical Properties for Ductile Iron Pipe

Casting processes are widely used to produce complicated metal shapes with little or no further machining, in a very economical way. Foundry industries in developing countries suffer from poor quality and productivity due to involvement of number of process parameter. Ductile iron pipes are casted centrifugally by using centrifugal casting machine. The quality of the pipe largely depends on its microstructure and mechanical properties. Even in completely controlled process, it is challenging to produce a better quality of pipe hence this casting process is also known as process of uncertainty. Major of the ductile iron pipe quality depends on the microstructure and mechanical properties like Ferrite percentage, Nodule count per square meter, elongation percentage and hardness. All these result are largely depending on the process parameters like magnesium percentage, Inlet cooling water flow rate and holding time of the pipe in annealing furnace. For analyze and optimize the Process Parameters Design of Experiments (DOE) based Taguchi Method is use.