The effect of heat treatment on the structure, microhardness and hardness of white cast iron
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/mom2026.03.003Keywords:
white cast iron, heat treatment, microstructure, hardnessAbstract
This article presents the results of a study of the microstructure, microhardness, and hardness of unalloyed white cast iron after heat treatment with phase recrystallization using a normalization regime and accelerated cooling with compressor air at pressures of 0.2 and 0.6 MPa. The greatest increase in white cast iron hardness (from 74 to 79.5 HRA) occurs after heat treatment with compressor air cooling at a pressure of 0.6 MPa.
It has been shown that all heat treatment conditions lead to an increase in the microhardness of pearlite and cementite in the ledeburite structure, however, with different patterns for these structural components. The increase in pearlite microhardness occurs due to an increase in its dispersion and correlates with an increase in the cooling rate. No changes in the cementite microstructure after heat treatment are observed using conventional metallographic methods. Unlike pearlite, the change in cementite microhardness does not correlate with a change in the cooling rate. The increase in cementite microhardness occurs due to an increase in its minimum values before heat treatment. Significant heterogeneity in cementite microhardness was established, which is considerably higher than that of pearlite. Heat treatment with different cooling rates resulted in the formation of similar values for the maximum, minimum, and average microhardness of cementite.
It is suggested that the observed features of the change in the microhardness of cementite are associated with changes in its micro- and/or substructure, not detected by the applied research methods or its different chemical composition.
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