Abstract. Dislocation-density-related equations were proved to be promising tools to correlate tensile plastic behaviour and microstructure in ductile irons (DIs), revealing distinct relationships between equation parameters and microstructure features in austempered ductile irons (ADI) and isothermed ductile irons (IDI). These equations resulted to be successful also in the characterization of the austempering process through the plastic behaviour analysis of tensile tests of an ADI 1050 that was quenched at different times during austempering. The equation parameters could indeed be correlated to the time window for the best ausferrite, and could predict the precipitation of the deleterious ε' carbides for long austempering times. In the present work the results of the tensile plastic behaviour analysis of different DIs through dislocation-density-related equations are reported. The aim of the analysis was to test the capability of these equations to assess the microstructure quality of DIs and support their industrial production.

The effect of austempering parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties of 27MnCrB5-2 steel has been investigated by means of: dilatometric, microstructural and fractographic analyses; tensile and Charpy V-notch (CVN) impact tests at room temperature and a low temperature.Microstructural analyses showed that upper bainite developed at a higher austempering temperature, while a mixed bainiticmartensitic microstructure formed at lower temperatures, with a different amount of bainite and martensite and a different size of bainite sheaf depending on the temperature. Tensile tests highlighted superior yield and tensile strengths (≈30%) for the mixed microstructure, with respect to both fully bainitic and Q&T microstructures, with only a low reduction in elongation to failure (≈10%). Impact tests confirmed that mixed microstructures have higher impact properties, at both room temperature and a low temperature.

In this work, the mechanical behavior of the austempered ductile iron (ADI) JS/1050-6 was investigated, with particular attention to the strain rate effects on the material ductility. Tensile tests at different strain rates (up to 10 3 s −1) and temperatures (ranging from 213 to 343 K) were performed. Samples with different geometries, smooth and round notched bars, were used to evaluate the effect of the stress triaxiality level on the strain at fracture. For each configuration, the evolution paths of stress and strain were extracted in the point where failure is expected performing numerical analyses at the continuum scale. Stress histories were used as input in a micromechanics analysis aimed to analyze the heterogeneous state of stress, determined by the presence of the graphite nuclei, under the different loading conditions obtained in the experiments. The main result is that, under dynamic conditions, the stress field redistribution, due to the adiabatic condition, postpones the failure occurrence, regardless temperature and strain rate effects on the matrix ductility.

An experimental characterization of the austempered ductile iron ISO 17804/JS/1050-6/S was performed carrying out tensile tests under different strain rates, temperatures and stress triaxiality levels. Then, composing a yield function surface, a hardening relation, and a damage criterion, a constitutive model was developed to describe the salient features of the observed macroscopic response. In particular, the Mohr-Coulomb yield function was selected to account for the pressure effect observed on the yield surface. A new hardening relation was proposed in order to account for both strain rate and temperature effects. The Bonora's damage model, developed in the framework of the continuum damage mechanics, was adopted to capture the failure condition under different stress triaxiality levels. The damage model was appropriately modified to account for the effect of strain rate and temperature on the failure strain.