Effect of nickel content and austempering temperature on microstructure and mechanical properties of austempered ductile iron (ADI)

In this article, the effect of two variables namely nickel content and austempering heat treatment temperature on mechanical and microstructural properties of ADI were investigated. Four Nickel content levels of 0.0, 0.6, 0.8 and 1% and three austempering temperatures of 320, 340 and 360°C were selected. Prior to austempering, all the samples were austenitized for 30 min at 840°C. The microstructure of austempered alloys mainly consisted of a mixture of needle like acicular ferrite and carbon stabilized austenitic matrix. The increase in Ni content improved the strength and hardness and it reached its peak at 0.8%. The microstructures also became finer with increase in Ni content as confirmed by Impact energy and elongation. Nodularity was found to be above 90% for all alloys at all austempering temperatures. However, the nodule counts increased with increase in Ni content up to 0.8% and then dropped. XRD analysis was done to estimate the retained austenite content present in the ausferrite matrix and it was concluded that for any given Nickel content level, the retained austenite content increases with austempering temperature. Nickel of 0.8% was found to be optimum for all austempering temperatures.