Microstructure and deformation behaviour of ductile iron under tensile loading

Abstract: The current thesis focuses on the deformation behaviour and strain distribution in the microstructure of ductile iron during tensile loading. Utilizing Digital Image Correlation (DIC) and in-situ tensile test under optical microscope, a method was developed to measure high resolution strain in microstructural constitutes. In this method, a pit etching procedure was applied to generate a random speckle pattern for DIC measurement. The method was validated by benchmarking the measured properties with the material’s standard properties.Using DIC, strain maps in the microstructure of the ductile iron were measured, which showed a high level of heterogeneity even during elastic deformation. The early micro-cracks were initiated around graphite particles, where the highest amount of local strain was detected. Local strain at the onset of the micro-cracks were measured. It was observed that the micro-cracks were initiated above a threshold strain level, but with a large variation in the overall strain.A continuum Finite Element (FE) model containing a physical length scale was developed to predict strain on the microstructure of ductile iron. The materials parameters for this model were calculated by optimization, utilizing Ramberg-Osgood equation. For benchmarking, the predicted strain maps were compared to the strain maps measured by DIC, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The DIC and simulation strain maps conformed to a large extent resulting in the validation of the model in micro-scale level.Furthermore, the results obtained from the in-situ tensile test were compared to a FE-model which compromised cohesive elements to enable cracking. The stress-strain curve prediction of the FE simulation showed a good agreement with the stress-strain curve that was measured from the experiment. The cohesive model was able to accurately capture the main trends of microscale deformation such as localized elastic and plastic deformation and micro-crack initiation and propagation.