Influence of rare earths on shrinkage porosity in thin walled ductile cast iron

Ductile cast iron has been cast in test bars with thickness from 2 to 10 mm. The rare earth elements La and Ce have been added to some of the castings to evaluate their influence on microstructure and shrinkage tendency. Both La and Ce increased the graphite nodule count, especially for thickness of 6 mm and below. La gave the best nodule size distribution with many small nodules. La had less shrinkage tendency than Ce in the 10 mm test bars. This tendency was less pronounced for the 6 and 4 mm test bars and other factors may have a large influence at these thicknesses. Increasing the temperature T-1, which is controlled by the growth of off-eutectic austenite dendrites, increased the shrinkage tendency.