【Cast Iron Weights Precautions】
1) Due to the good fluidity of cast iron, both the wall thickness and the line shrinkage are minimal, allowing for the design of thin-walled, complex-shaped castings.
2) The mechanical properties of cast iron are highly sensitive to wall thickness, hence it is not advisable to increase the load-bearing capacity of castings by simply adding wall thickness. Instead, the objective of eliminating thick sections while maintaining load-bearing capacity can be achieved by manipulating the shape of the cross-section.
3) Due to the fact that gray cast iron has a compressive strength three to four times higher than its tensile strength, to fully utilize the characteristics of gray cast iron, it is advisable to commonly use asymmetric cross-sections, making the section of the casting subjected to compressive stress smaller than the section subjected to tensile stress.
4) When planning cast iron structural castings, the wall thickness should not be too thin; the corners should be appropriately thickened to prevent white mouth arrangements that make the area too hard and brittle for machining.
5) Cast iron has almost no plasticity, so it cannot be corrected like cast steel when deformed. Therefore, when planning gray cast iron structures, it is advisable to follow the principle of simultaneous solidification and choose symmetrical structures. Design the structural and wall thicknesses to be freely shortened to prevent deformation cracks in the castings.