Cast Iron Weights Caution Precautions
1) Due to cast iron's good fluidity and minimal shrinkage and line shrinkage, it is suitable for planning thin-walled and complex-shaped castings.
2) The mechanical properties of cast iron are highly sensitive to wall thickness, thus it is not advisable to increase the load-bearing capacity of castings by adding wall thickness. Instead, the objective of both eliminating thick sections and improving load-bearing capacity can be achieved by altering the shape of the cross-section.
3) Due to the fact that grey cast iron has a compressive strength three to four times higher than its tensile strength, to fully utilize the unique characteristics of grey cast iron, it is advisable to commonly use asymmetric cross-sections, making the sections subjected to compressive stress smaller than those subjected to tensile stress.
4) When planning cast iron structural castings, the wall thickness should not be too thin, and the corners should be appropriately thickened to prevent the formation of white mouth, making the area hard and brittle and difficult to machine.
5) Cast iron has very little plasticity, so it cannot be corrected like cast steel after deformation. Therefore, when planning gray cast iron structures, it is advisable to follow the principle of simultaneous solidification and choose symmetrical structures. Design the structural members and wall thicknesses to be freely shortened to prevent 1) deformation cracks in castings.
