MICROSTRUCTURE CHARACTERISATION OF GRADED ALLOY CAST

IRON FOR FLASHING/GRINDING PLATES USED IN GRINDING OF BALL

BEARINGS

Prayut Bhamawat 1 *, J N Baad 2

1Technical Director M/s Mangalam Steelcast Pvt Ltd

2 Director M/s Reiki Metallica

Abstract:
Alloy Cast Iron with tribological properties has been well studied/experimented
but for some specific industrial applications even the commonly studied theories
also do not apply effectively. One of such application is with grinding and
flashing plate used in manufacturing of precision bearing balls. The
requirements like uniform structure through out the depth of castings, high wear
resistance as well as soft enough to avoid ball polishing and being machinable
makes it very unique. This paper highlights on the original development of such
casting using first principle of metallurgy to meet with above properties by
varying the microstructure of alloy cast iron.

Key words: Grinding-Plate, Flashing-Plate, Bearing Balls, Alloy Cast Iron, Self
Lubrication Graphite

Introduction:
Alloy cast iron has been widely studied and used for numerous applications. It
has characteristics like strength, weight, price, ability to cast complex
geometries etc., and can be modified by varying its chemical composition and
microstructure, hence it is widely used in engineering application. In recent
years study of alloy cast iron having tribological properties has been of great
interest as there is great potential in manufacturing industries by reducing the
wastage of resources resulting from high friction and wear. There have been
various studies to investigate the tribological behaviour of alloy cast iron with
different graphite morphology and microstructures, which would influence wear
rate and the lifetime of the parts [1].

This paper covers mainly about development of grinding plate and flashing
plate castings for the application of grinding steel bearing balls. In order to grind
& polish the balls efficiently, casting plate should have uniform structure, high
strength and wear-resist matrix [2,3]. Requirements are such that we cannot opt
for general Cast Iron grades. Chemical composition and Heat Treatment to be
envisaged vis-a-vis the required microstructure to meet the following set of
property combination. The aim of this paper is to study the factors like matrix
microstructure, graphite flakes morphology, carbides quantum & its distribution
on which wear resistance of cast iron is dependent [4]. Performances of the
developed plates are evaluated practically by observing the cut rate of the balls
in the flashing/grinding machines. Cut rate of the balls can be defined as rate at
which the material is removed from the surface of the balls to get into desired
shape & surface finish. It is measured in μm/hr. Ideally, higher the cut-rate,
higher is the productivity hence better is the performance.

Requirement for Grinding/Flashing Plate:

Cold-working for surface finish operation is a challenging job. For such
application, have to consider the flowing set of properties to acquire the desired
results.
1. Wear Resistant – to withstand the high hardness of material to be
ground. Nevertheless the hard-alloy carbide particles in the
microstructure comparatively in a soft matrix tends to impact improved
cut rate.
2. Uniform Hardness through-out the thickness – for uniform & consistent
cut rate through-out the depth of the plate. Having uniform hardness also
increases the reliability of the balls coming out of the process and it
improves the life of the plate.
3. Freedom from foundry defects like blow holes, pin holes, sand inclusions
etc. – Even the minute defect would demean the intrinsic grinding
requirement of bearing balls and will disturbs the quality and surface
finish of the bearing ball.
4. Close grain structure – Required to impart smoothness after grinding
5. Self lubrication – Presence of graphite in microstructure in optimum
amount is necessary to have lubrication in micro-level to avoid the
polishing/burning of the balls during grinding operation.
6. Machinability – Plates should be machinable at the hardness around 50
HRC. This is an uphill task of having optimum carbide forming elements,
primary graphite imparting soft matrix and enhance hardenability at the
same time.
7. Heat absorption – The plates should have sufficient thermal conductivity
to promote the heat dissipation during grinding operation. Alloy
combination should be in such a way that the microstructure that is
brought about shall not reduce the thermal conductivity. While the
graphite distribution in plate form would enhance thermal conductivity,
carbide streaks would tend to reduce it with increased tessellated
stresses, which would increase the cracking tendency.
8. Damping Capacity – Plates should have sufficient damping capacity to
absorb the vibration during service.

Manufacturing Process:
In this study, alloy cast iron Flashing plates were manufactured in a 250 KW
medium frequency induction furnace of 750 Kg capacity. Each plate weighed
around 450 Kg (raw casting, un-machined). Main raw materials used for
manufacturing the same are pig iron, cast iron scrap & alloying elements
(Nickel, Chromium, Molybdenum). Healthy inoculation practice is sine-qua-non
for favourable graphite distribution and its size.
Wear resistant is imparted by having high carbon content in range of cast iron
along with the alloying addition to promote the optimum amount of alloying
carbides. Machinability is improved by addition of non-carbides forming
elements which also enhances the hardenability of the casting. The subsequent
transformation in their stoichiometry is done by the way of heat treatment.
Separate cycle of hardening is carried out so as to achieve the desired
hardness range (between 48 – 53 HRC) after stress reliving cycle. Combination
of both heat treatment cycles is decided in a way to get the uniform hardness
across the thickness of 100 mm.

Meticulous foundry practice is adopted to ensure the defect free & consistent
castings. Defined practice of inoculation is followed so as to achieve close grain
structure. Final Heat Treatment operation is carried out to obtain uniformly
distributed fine graphite structure so as to have self-lubrication property as well
as to improve damping capacity. Separate test block of specific size was poured
along with the plates for further laboratory studies.

Three different variations of the plates (named as Plate No. 1, 2 & 3) were
manufactured. Table 1 gives the chemical composition of the all the trial plates.
Trials of the casted plates for evaluating the performance were conducted on
the ball grinding machines with 13mm 420C steel balls.

Observations:
Observations mainly hardness, microstructure and cut rate of bearing balls were
noted and are mentioned in Table 2. Cut rate was noted to check the
performance of the trail plates and compared it with the standard plate.
Standard plates are the developed plates for the grinding/flashing of the balls
and are being used regularly for the same purpose. It is used for the
benchmarking reference and to understand the effect on the performance of the
plates with variation in microstructures.

Hardness of the standard plate has been taken from the test certificate provided
by the supplier and cut rate was as observed during continuous operation.
Microstructure of the standard plate is taken from the cut-piece of worn-
out/used plate.

Microstructures of all the trial plates are provided in Figure 1, 2, 3 & 4 for Plate
no. 1, 2, 3 & 4 respectively.

Discussion:
Plate No. 1: Plate no. 1 was casted to have microstructure of Graphite flakes
with carbides in it. Because of denser concentration of carbides, hardness
achieved was very high and gave excellent cut rate also. But such plates were
observed to have with higher tendency of cracking because of presence of
graphite flakes in the matrix of pearlite causing stress at the sharp edge.
Moreover during ball grinding operation, because of higher carbides, the balls
were getting polished too and giving burnt appearance on the balls, which was
not acceptable.

Plate No. 2: Target in this plate was to reduce to the carbides concentration to
avoid polishing of the balls during grinding operation and to create smaller
graphite flakes in the matrix of tempered martensite to reduce the tendency of
cracking. Hardness obtained was within desired range (from 48 to 52 HRC) but
cut rate observed to be very less. This might be due to graphite quantum is
more (distribution is OK) and Carbide is present in elongated form with
percentage as well as distribution of same is lean. Though no cracking in the
plates were observed but because of the low cut rate it was not ideal to use.

Plant No. 3: Based on the performance on Plate No. 2, this plate was aimed to
have more concentrated carbides along with the shorter graphite flakes in
tempered martensite matrix. Hardness observed is within desired range.
Graphite flake size is smaller, finer, more uniform and slightly vermicular which
helped to provide proper lubrication and damping property without increase in
stress. Carbide concentration was optimum but it is found to be scattered.
Adapting this microstructure improved the performance drastically & achieved
close to the standard plate.

Conclusion & Future Plan:

Above stage-wise development shows the effect on the performance of the
plates with variation in the microstructure. Though hardness of the plate is kept
same in all the trial but performance varied drastically with change in the
concentration of carbides and graphite flakes. From the above, it can be
concluded that for wear resistance cast iron castings, presence of matrix of
tempered martensite along with the carbides is essential to give strength to the
graphite flakes. For the better performance of the plates, it is important to
maintain optimum carbide quantum, uniformly distributed in tempered
martensite matrix.

For next trial (Plate No. 4), we will be doing micro-alloying to have the more
uniform distribution of graphite flakes & carbides. Both these changes should
enhance plate performance further to match up with the standard plate. An
alternative of having longer & dense graphite flakes but with an altered heat
treatment of austempering is also in the pipeline, which may give even better
performance than the standard plate, used here for reference.
Table & Figures:
1. Table 1: Chemical composition (weight %) of the trial plates
% Element Plate No. 1 Plate No. 2 Plate No. 3
%C 2.82 2.72 2.43
% Si 1.21 1.50 1.64
% Mn 0.60 0.91 0.90
%S 0.07 0.12 0.15
%P 0.11 0.15 0.13
% Ni 1.83 1.56 2.23
% Mo 2.01 2.22 1.84
% Cr 0.08 0.21 0.51
%V 0.30 0.01 0.10

2. Table 2: Comparison of the observations of various plates

Plate No. Microstructure Hardness Cut Rate
(μ/hr)
1 Graphite Flakes with Carbides 60 HRC 118
Smaller size graphite Flakes w/ dis-
2 continuous elongated primary 51 HRC 44.9
carbides
Finely distributed smaller size
graphite flakes, w/ scattered
3 52 HRC 98.7
distribution of primary carbides in
tempered maternsite
Finely distributed longer size graphite
Standard
flake with network of primary carbides 48 HRC 114.9
Plate
in tempered martensite

1. Figure 1: Microstructure observation of Plate No. 1 (Microstructure shows

graphite flakes with presence of carbide in matrix of martensite)

2. Figure 2: Microstructure observation of Plate No. 2 (Small graphite flakes

along with discontinuous elongated carbides in tempered martensite matrix)
3. Figure 3: Microstructure observation of Plate No. 3 (Scattered Graphite flakes
with size around 3-6 along with scattered primary carbides in tempered
martensite matrix)

4. Figure 4: Microstructure observation of Standard Plate (Larger graphite flakes

with elongated primary carbide in martensite matrix)

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*Corresponding address: e-mail: prayut.mangalam@gmail.com /

prayut@mangalamsteelcast.com