Acta Univ. Agric. Silvic. Mendelianae Brun. 2017, 65(4), 1295-1301 | DOI: 10.11118/actaun201765041295

The Influence of Corrosion Attack on Grey Cast Iron Brittle-Fracture Behaviour and its Impact on the Material Life Cycle

Jiří Švarc¹, Tomáš Binar¹, Petr Dostál², Michal Černý², Jan Tippner³

¹ Department of Logistics, University of Defence, Brno, Kounicova 65, 662 10 Brno, Czech Republic

² Department of Technology and Automobile Transport, Faculty of AgriSciences, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00 Brno Czech Republic

³ Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic

The paper is concerned with brittle-fracture behaviour of grey cast iron attacked by corrosion and its impact on the life cycle of a spare part made of grey cast iron. In a corrosion chamber, outdoor climatic conditions (temperature and relative air humidity) were simulated in which degradation processes, induced by material corrosion, degrading mechanical properties of a material and possibly leading to irreversible damage of a machine component, occur in the material of maintenance vehicles that are out of operation for the period of one year. The corrosion degradation of grey cast iron, which the spare parts constituting functional parts of an engine are made of grey cast iron, is described with regard to brittle-fracture behaviour of the material. For the description of corrosion impact on grey cast iron, an instrumented impact test was employed. A corrosion degradation effect on grey cast iron was identified based on measured values of total energy, macro plastic deformation limit, initiation force of unstable crack propagation and force exerted on unstable crack arrest. In the first part of the experiment, a corrosion test of the material concerned was simulated in a condensation chamber; in the second part of the experiment, research results are provided for the measured quantities describing the material brittle-fracture behaviour; this part is supplemented with a table of results and figures showing the changes in the values of the measured quantities in relation to test temperatures. In the discussion part, the influence of corrosion on the values of unstable crack initiation and arrest forces is interpreted. In the conclusion, an overview of the most significant research findings concerning the impact of corrosion on the life cycle of grey cast iron material is provided.

Keywords: corrosion attack, brittle-fracture behaviour, plastic deformation limit, crack initiation force, crack arrest force, life cycle

Grants and funding:

The work was supported by the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic, project No. DZRO K-109. The research has been supported by the project TP 6/2017: Defectoscopic quality assessment of technical and organic materials; financed by IGA AF MENDELU.

Published: September 1, 2017  Show citation