Mechanical, physical, and corrosion characteristics of 2% vanadium alloyed ductile iron

This study was to investigate the effect of 2% vanadium alloyed austempered ductile iron on mechanical properties and microstructure and also to determine the desired austempering temperatures of vanadium alloyed ductile iron. In this study, specimens of 2%vanadium DI were produced by using the Y-block casting in the foundry lab. The specimen produced were machine according to the tensile and impact dimension followed the TSEN1002-1 and ASTM E23 standard. Then, austempering process was performed at the three different temperatures to the sample which are 500°, 600° and 700° in high temperature furnace. The specimens has been machine were undergoes the tensile, impact, density and hardness test. The microstructures were observed by using Olympus BX 41 M Microscopes image analysis system before and after etching by Nital 15%. Polarization test also were conduct between commercial DI and 2%V-DI. The results show that 2% vanadium alloyed ductile iron (2% V-DI) not only increases the nodule count and ferrite content in the microstructure, but also improves the mechanical properties such as tensile strength, impact toughness proportional to the austempered temperature as compared to unalloyed DI. The low corrosion rates also show for the 2% of vanadium alloyed compare to the commercial DI.