Investigations on the fracture toughness of austempered ductile iron alloyed with chromium

An investigation was carried out to examine the influence of chromium content on the plane strain fracture toughness of austempered ductile iron (ADI). ADIs containing 0, 0.3 and 0.5 wt.% chromium were austempered over a range of temperatures to produce different microstructures. The microstructures were characterized by optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Plane strain fracture toughness of all these materials was determined and correlated with microstructure and chromium content. The chromium content was found to influence the fracture toughness through its influence on the processing window. Since the chromium addition shifts the processing window to shorter durations, the higher chromium alloys at higher austempering temperatures tend to fall outside of the processing window, resulting in less than optimum microstructure and inferior fracture toughness. A small chromium addition of 0.3 wt.% was found to be beneficial for the fracture toughness of ADI.