Abstract
It is well known that the graphite flakes become spherulite, when a suitable amount of nodulizing element, such as cerium or magnesium, is added to the cast iron. The change of graphite from flake to nodular shape improves not only the tensile strength but the ductility as well. However, the mechanism of spheroidization of graphite in cast iron has not yet been clearly understood, and various theories proposed by a number of investigators were such that it may be due to the special nucleation effect, prevention of flake formation by the adsorption of magnesium vapour on the graphite surface or file surface free energy difference between plain graphite and magnesium-adsorbed graphite. Regardless of the speculations of spheroidizing mechanism of the graphite in the cast iron, the final phenomenon comes to the conclusion that it may be due to the lack of wettability between graphite and iron matrix. In order to collaborate this fact through an experimental method, the authors have constructed a vacuum arc furnace for the wettability measurement as its first step. Our study and experiments were then directed to the comparison of the wettability between iron and graphite on the two cases (namely, the one where magnesium was preliminarily coated on the graphite surface and the other not coated), by means of contact angle measurements. The result was such that a significant difference of the contact angles has been shown between the above two cases. indicating the spheroidization of graphite which might have resulted from the lack of wettability between magnesium-adsorbed graphite and iron matrix.