Materials Science and Engineering, A158 (1992) 241-249 241

The austenite transformation in ferritic ductile cast iron

Jaw-Min Chou and Min-Hsiung Hon

Department of Materials Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan (Taiwan)
Jye-LongLee
Steel and Aluminum Research and Development Department, China Steel Corporation, Kaohsiung (Taiwan)
(Received March 26, ! 992)

Abstract

The isothermal austenitization transformation in an unalloyed ferritic ductile cast iron was studied over the temperature
range from 880 to 953 C. During austenitization, austenite nucleates preferentially at cell boundaries and graphite-
ferrite interfaces and grows by thickening or lengthening the existing nuclei with the rate at the cell boundaries higher than
that at the graphite-ferrite interfaces. The growth of austenite is accomplished by an up-hill boundary diffusion of carbon
to cell boundaries and a volume diffusion of carbon from graphite to ferrite; the former mechanism was found to be
dominant. Austenitization kinetics can be described by an Avrami equation with exponent n ranging from 1.31 to 1.51.
The activation energy of austenitization is 267.2 kJ mol- 1 and is about half of that required by an interface-controlled
process. The combined evidence of microstructural observations, transformation kinetics and activation energy suggest
that austenitization is a carbon diffusion-controlled process.

I. Introduction activation energy of austenitization in an unalloyed

ferritic ductile cast iron. The purpose is to understand
Over the last few years, a number of thermal pro- the nucleation and growth mechanism and the rate-
cesses [1-3] have been developed to modify the matrix controlling process in austenitization.
structure and thus the properties of ductile cast irons.
Among those processes, the treatment of austenitizing
plus austempering or quenching has received increas- 2. Experimental procedures
ing interest because the treatment can produce cast
irons with a variety of mixtures of matrix such as 2.1. Materials
ferrite-bainite-retained austenite, ferrite-martensite- The cast iron used in this study was prepared with
retained austenite and ferrite-bainite-martensite. commercial pig iron by induction melting. A 77 kg
Different combinations of microstructure result in melt was spheroidized with 1.3 wt.% spheroider (Fe-
different mechanical properties, from strong to tough, 8.6wt.%Mg-47wt.%Si) and inoculated with 0.4wt.%Fe-
thereby extending the application field of cast irons. In 75wt.%Si. After spheroidization and inoculation treat-
the above treatment, austenitization kinetics plays an ment, the melt was cast into Y blocks with dimensions
important role in controlling the final volume fraction as shown in Fig. 1. The chemical composition of the
of the second phase. However, most research has ductile cast iron is given in Table 1.
focused on the decomposition of austenite, while
austenitization has received less attention and thus the
kinetics of austenitization is still not clear. Although
Ogi et al. [4] proposed that austenitization of cast iron
is diffusion controlled and Chou et al. [5] observed
favorable nucleation sites in cast irons, no systematic
mechanism in terms of the kinetic law, nucleation and
growth process and activation energy of the process
has been proposed. 150rnrn
The present work was carried out to study the 30ram
microstructure change, transformation kinetics and Fig. 1. The dimensions of the Y block.

0921-5093/92/$5.00 1992 - Elsevier Sequoia. All rights reserved

242 J.-M. Chou et al. / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron

TABLE 1. Chemical composition of the ductile cast iron

studied (wt.%)

C Si Mn P S Mg
3.51 2.49 -- 0.033 0.015 0.038

-Q
DI
f

Fig. 2. Optical micrograph of ferritic ductile cast iron.

2.2. Austenitizing treatments

All castings were subjected to a ferrization treatment
to obtain a full ferrite matrix before austenitization.
Hollow cylindrical dilatometer specimens 12 nun in
length, of 5 mm outside diameter and 1 nun wall thick-
ness, were taken from the parallel part of the Y block.
Austenitization was carried out using a Theta high
speed dilatometer. Specimens were preheated at
680 C for 3 min to ensure a u0iform specimen tem-
perature then rapidly heated to the austenitization
temperature from 880 to 953 C. The dilatation of the
specimens was continuously monitored during austen-
itization and the percentage of austenitization at
various times was determined from the dilatation.
After austenitization the specimens were rapidly
cooled to room temperature to freeze the microstruc-
ture. Fig. 3. Optical micrographs of ferritic ductile cast iron austen-
itized at 900 C for (a) 1 s, (b) 6 s and (c) 11.6 s.
2.3. Metallography
Metallographic examinations were carried out using
optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron 3. Results
microscopy (SEM) after specimens had been ground,
polished and etched with 2% Nital. In order to deter- 3. I. Microstructural evolution during austenitization
mine the growth rate of austenite, quantitative The initial microstructure of ductile cast iron before
measurements of the thickness and length of austenite austenitization is a fully ferrite matrix (Fig. 2). After
at various austenitization times were taken from SEM austenitization at 900 *C for 1 s, the quenching-frozen
images. Each datum was obtained from at least 15 austenite (hereafter referred to as austenite) starts to
photographs at 420 x magnification. The distribution nucleate at graphite-ferrite interfaces and ferrite grain
of carbon and silicon was examined using electron boundaries (Fig. 3(a)). As the specimen undergoes
probe microanalysis (EPMA). further transformation, the growth of austenite takes
 J.-M. Chou et al. / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron
place mainly at the existing sites in the following
manner: (1) the,austenite at graphite-ferrite interfaces
thickens and becomes a complete shell around the
graphite, this is the so-called "hard-eyes" structure [6,
7]; (2) the austenite at ferrite grain boundaries thickens
in the direction normal to the grain boundaries and
lengthens along the grain boundaries. From Fig. 4, it
can be seen that the lengthening rate of austenite at cell
boundaries is higher than the thickening rate at graph-
ite-ferrite interfaces during the early stage of trans-
formation. The lengthening of austenite saturates after
about 8 s, indicating the collision of individual nuclei at
cell boundaries. Consequently, a network type austen-
ite forms as shown in Figs. 3(b) and 3(c). After collision
of the nuclei, however, austenite continues to thicken at
both cell boundaries and graphite-ferrite interfaces
and thus the growth of austenite proceeds mainly by
thickening. The network microstructure demonstrates
that it is only solidification cell boundaries (as illustrated
in Figs. 3(b) and 3(c)) but not all ferrite grain b o u n d -
aries which are effective nucleation sites. The fact that
austenite can seldom be seen inside a solidification cell
(Fig. 5) also supports the above description. Although
one most frequently finds austenite nuclei at the junc-
tions of cell boundaries and ferrite grain boundaries,
not all the junctions are occupied by austenite nuclei at
the early stage of austenitization. This implies site
saturation of nucleation. From Figs. 3 and 4, it is seen
that the thickening of austenite at cell boundaries is
faster than that at graphite-ferrite interfaces. Similar
microstructural changes can also be observed at other
temperatures, but the growth rate of austenite increases
with increasing temperature (Fig. 6). From the results in
Figs. 6(a), 6(b) and 6(c), it is clear that the preferred
nucleation sites of austenite do not change with austen-
itization temperature, but the growth rate of austenite
increases with increasing temperature.
) 20
E
m 16
<
_J
~
ffl
4
E
.o O~
c- ' ' & '
Austenitizotion Time (sec)
Fig. 4. The change in thickness or length of austenite with
austenitization time: A , length of austenite along cell boundaries;
m, thickness of austenite at cell boundaries; e, thickness of
austenite around graphite; austenitization temperature 900 C.
243
Figure 7(b) shows the distribution of carbon and
silicon between two solidification cells after austen-
itization of a specimen at 900 C for 1 s. In the ferrite
matrix, the silicon concentration has a maximum value
at the graphite-ferrite interface and gradually reduces
to a minimum around the cell boundary. This silicon
concentration profile is believed to be caused by the
inverse segregation at cell boundaries during solidifica-
tion. In contrast, carbon has a peak concentration at
the cell boundary (Fig. 7(c)). It was found that the
silicon concentration does not change significantly with
austenitization time (Fig. 8(a)), whereas the carbon
peak becomes broader with increasing austenitization
time (Fig. 8(b)).
3.2. Transformation kinetics
The solid curves in Fig. 9 show the experimentally
determined austenitization fraction as a function of
austenitization time at various temperatures. The
transformation rate is higher at higher temperatures.
Austenitization is complete in less than 25 min at
952C, but requires more than 100 min at 880C.
Since the transformation curves are characterized by a
sigmoidal shape, they can be analyzed by applying the
Avrami equation [8] with respect to the relationship
between the transformation fraction fr and austenitiza-
tion time t:
fr = 1 - exp ( - kt") (1)
where k is a rate constant dependent on temperature
and n is the reaction exponent. In order to determine k
and n, the natural logarithmic expression of eqn. (1)
was used:
12
Fig. 5. SEM image of ferritic ductile cast iron austenitized at
900 C for 1 s.
 244 J.-M. Chou et aL / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron

25000 25000

og20000
i~ 20000=oC-
O 15000 , 15000~

..~ 10000 10000.,.,

c
0 o
0 5000 ' 5000 (.-)

. __ dr
O0 20 40 6~) 8~
(b) Distance (~m)

25O
c %
o 200 .,
I.,-
o
C)
'~150

8 100
i-:-j:'- , ,

5%(~) , ~
Distance
' 0 ~ "~m) ' 70
Fig. 7. (a) Micrograph showing two adjacent solidification cells in
ferritic ductile cast iron austenitized at 900 C for 1 s, (b) elec-
tron probe microanalysis of carbon and silicon between
two graphite nodules and (c) carbon distribution across cell
Fig. 6. Optical micrographs of ferritic ductile cast iron austen- boundary.
itized at (a) 880 C, (b) 900 *C and (c) 950 C for 6 s.

by eqn. (1). Therefore, ~the Avrami equation can be

The plot of lnln[1/(1-f,)] against In t in the tempera-
ture range 8 8 0 - 9 5 2 C is shown in Fig. 10. Values of n
and k determined from the slopes and intercepts of the
linear regression lines are listed in Table 2.
By substituting n and k values into eqn. (1) for a
variety of fr, the required austenitization time t can be
obtained as shown by the solid circles in Fig. 9. It is
obvious that the austenitization kinetic determined by
dilatometry is in good agreement with that calculated
used successfully to describe the kinetic,s of au.stenitiza~
tion in ferritic ductile cast iron.
3.3. Evaluation o f the activation energy
The austenitization rate of ferritic ductile cast iron is
given by the differential form of eqn. ( 1 ) as follows:
dZ _ knt~_~ exp(- kt ) (3)
dt
 J.-M. Chou et al. / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron 245

3.2 2.0

~"2.4 " 9s2c 93ec 9ooc 68o%

1.0
Ol.6 ?1 M---

I 0.0
r - ,t-

00.8
.u_
o~
,e---

v-1.0
U30.0 -- _ I I I I
c
0 10 20 30 40 50
Ia) D i s t a n c e ( ~ m ) c
-2.0
350
11.6 SEC

250 --3"03 '$ 5 6 7 8 9

In t (sac)
150 Fig. 10. The kinetics of austenitization reaction in ferritic ductile
E cast iron.
O
-~
L 50 I

8.6 SEC
I I I

o 250
O

"~ 150 v. TABLE 2. Values of n and k for the formation of austenite

Temperature n k
-I 50 I I I I (C)
o 1SEC
250
880 1.37 3.43 x 10 -5
900 1.51 3.40 x 10 -5
150 904 1.51 3.66 x 10 -5
908 1.41 7.23 x 10 -5
931 1.39 1.80 x 10 -4
50o 1'o 2b 3'0 ;o 50 938 1.38 1.86 10 -4
Ib) Distance (urn)
952 1.35 5.24x 10 -4
Fig. 8. (a) Electron probe microanalysis of silicon between 953 1.31 5.81 x 10 -4
graphite and cell boundary and (b) carbon distribution across
cell boundary austenitized at 900 C for various austenitization
times: ~ , 1 s; - - m - - , 8.6 s; _A--, 11.6 s.
T h e gradient at 5 0 % austenitization for each austen-
itization t e m p e r a t u r e (dfr/dt)5o can be calculated by
inputting n, k and to.5 into eqn. (3). t0.5 is the time
"~'1.0 required f o r 5 0 % austenitization transformation. T h e
t r a n s f o r m a t i o n rate is also expressed by an A r r h e n i u s
r- 0.8 e q u a t i o n in terms o f Q a n d T [9, 10]:
.o
oO ,4,
~ 0.6

c- / In this e q u a t i o n C is a constant, Q is the activation

. 0 0.4 e n e r g y of transformation, R is the gas constant, and T
o
.N is the austenitization t e m p e r a t u r e in degrees kelvin.
' ~ 0.2 T h e natural logarithmic expression of eqn. (4) can be
written in the f o r m

<:3 0.01 0 , . . .i..P102 . . . . . . . . . .1Q

... ~ . . . .
Austenitizotion Time (,sac) lndfrdt RTQ+lnC (5)
Fig. 9. Isothermal reaction curves for ferritic ductile cast iron
austenitized at various temperatures. The solid lines were deter- By inputting the values of t r a n s f o r m a t i o n rates at
mined for dilatometry, and the solid circles were derived from various temperatures obtained from eqn. (3) into
the Avrami equation, eqn. (5), ln(dfJdt)50 vs. ( 1 / T ) x 104 can be plotted, as
 246 J.-M. Chou et aL / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron

shown in Fig. 11. The slope in Fig. 11 is equal to
- (Q/R) x 10- 4. Therefore, the activation energy of the
austenitization reaction can be obtained from the slope
multiplied by - R x 104. Thus, the activation energy of
austenitization Q derived from the kinetic data is 267.2
kJ mol- 1.
In order to verify whether this activation energy is
carbon diffusion controlled or interface controlled in
the austenitization reaction, we assume that the
advancing ferrite-austenite interface reaction is the
controlling factor. The only available theoretical treat-
ment of boundary migration in the absence of diffusion
is that derived from absolute reaction rate theory [11,
12]. The rate of growth is given by
carbon in ferrite is very small [12, 13], the chemical
potential of iron in ferrite at the ferrite-austenite inter-
face P~e[xu ~is equal tO the free energy of b.c.c, iron F F~e ,
i.e.
F~elxo=Fg~ (9)
Furthermore, the chemical potential of iron in ferrite
at the ferrite-austenite interface is the same as the
chemical potential of iron in austenite at the
austenite -ferrite interface (P~ol,~o), i.e.
P~o I=,=P~o I~ (10)
By combining the results of eqns. (9) and (10) in eqn.
(8), eqn. (8) can be rewritten as follows:

G = CAF~2"y exp -~ (6) ct-7 r a ___RTln(1 - 6xy~/ (11)

AFFe = FFe -- FFe = 5 \ 1 - xra /

where C is a constant, AF}~'~ is the free energy differ- where xra is the atomic fraction of carbon in austenite
ence between the ferrite and anstenite phases in iron at the r - ( a + 7) phase boundary. The values of x~a were
per mole which varies with temperature, and AE is the determined from the Fe-C-Si phase diagram [14]. The
activation energy for movement of the interface. In calculated AF~e~ and the values of x~a and G at
order to determine the activation energy AE caused by various temperatures are listed in Table 3. Figure 12
jumping of the iron atoms, the natural logarithmic shows a plot of In(AF~7/G) vs. (l/T) x 104. From the
expression of eqn. (6)is obtained as follows: slope of the line in Fig. 12, an activation energy AE of
504 kJ mol-1 was determined. A comparison between
I[AF~'Yl 1 +AE
n[---~/=In C RT (7)
T A B L E 3. Kinetic and thermodynamic data of austenite
In order to obtain A F ~ ' r the following expression
[13] is used: T~ G xy a AF~ AF~Y/G
(C) ( m m s -1) (at.%) (Jmo1-1) ( J s m m -1 mo1-1)

f'~-F~=RT In( 1-6x] (8) 880 1.50 X 10 -5 0.0124 124.99 8.33 10 6

5 k l-x] 900 4.48 x 10 -5 0.0099 100.63 2.25 x 106
908 5.54 x 10 -5 0.0095 99.98 1.80 X 10 6
w h e r e / ~ is the chemical potential of iron in austenite, 931 7 . 7 9 x 10 -5 0.0075 77.70 9.97 x 105
938 1.196 x 10 -4 0.0074 77.11 6.45 x 105
F ~ is the free energy of f.c.c, iron, and x is the atomic 952 2.351 x 10 -4 0.0060 64.51 2.74 x 105
fraction of carbon. Since the equilibrium solubility of

-6.0 15

-6.5
.-,,o /
"O

-7.0 t.t_ 13
"12
v
-

-- -7.5 -- 12

i
II~. b , L ,
-8"S.b ' 8h ' 8.'4 ' 8.'8 "' 8.8 8.2 8.'4 s.'8 8.8

(1/T)x 10" (l/K) (I/T)x10 4 (I/K)

Fig. 11. Plot of ln(dfr/dt)s0 vs. 1/T. Fig. 12. Plot of In(AF~" Y/G) vs. 1/T.
 J.-M. Chou et al. / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron
the activation energy Q obtained from kinetic data and
the theoretically calculated activation energy AE,
reveals that AE is about twice as large as Q. Therefore,
from the energetic view-point, the rate controlling
factor of austenitization in ferritic ductile cast iron is
not interface movement, but carbon diffusion.
4. Discussion
4.1. Rate controlling process and effective nucleation
sites
The kinetics of austenitization of ductile cast iron
can be described by an Avrami equation with exponent
n -~ 1.31-1.51. According to Doremus [15], when n ~ 1
and the transformation is interface controlled, the
morphology of transformation products must be in the
shape of plates, which is not seen after austenitization.
In addition, the activation energy calculated for the
interface-controlled process does not agree with the
value determined from experiment. The austenitization
is therefore suggested to be diffusionally controlled.
A diffusionally controlled process with n = 1.5 can
be a process where the particles are growing from small
dimensions with a zero nucleation rate [16]. This
means that site saturation occurs during the early stage
of transformation and the transformation kinetics is
mainly determined by the growth process. The micro-
structural observations (Fig. 3) reveal that austenitiza-
tion proceeds mainly by the growth of existing nuclei,
suggesting that site saturation does occur in the austen-
itization process.
The austenite was found to nucleate preferentially at
areas which include graphite-ferrite interfaces and cell
boundaries. However, nucleation at grain boundaries
includes grain boundary surfaces where two grains
meet, grain edges where three grains meet, and grain
corners where four grains meet. The kinetic laws for
grain boundary nucleation transformation have been
derived by Cahn [17] and he proposed that n = 1, 2 and
3 indicates nucleation at grain boundary surfaces, grain
edges and grain comers respectively. Since the value of
n obtained in this study is approximately 1.31-1.51, it
can be concluded that the active nucleation sites of
austenite include grain boundary surfaces and grain
edges, with the former being more important. The
geometric relationship between spheroidal graphite
and the solidification cell is illustrated schematically in
Fig. 13. From Fig. 13, it is obvious that the interfaces
between the graphite and the solidification cell are
two-dimensional boundary surfaces, whereas the cell
boundaries include two-dimensional boundary sur-
faces and one-dimensional boundary edges. From the
kinetic exponent obtained both by calculation and
microstructural observations, it is suggested that the
247
- - GRAPHITE
-- FERRITE
. ~ FERRITEGRAIN
\ BOUNDARY
BOUNDARY~ CELL BOUNDARY
~ GRAPHITEIFERRITE
I ~ BOUNDARY
SURFACE
Fig. 13. Schematic illustration of active austenite nucleation sites
at grain boundaries and carbon diffusion paths in ferritic ductile
cast iron: ~, carbon diffusion paths.
active nucleation sites are predominantly grain bound-
ary surfaces. Although the nucleation energy at bound-
ary surfaces is higher than that at edges or corners [18],
the area of boundary surfaces per unit volume is larger
than that of edges or corners. Consequently, boundary
surfaces act as the most important nucleation sites.
4.2. Growth mechanism
Although grain boundary surfaces are the main
nucleation sites, ferrite grain boundaries within solidifi-
cation cells were found t o be not as effective for
nucleation as the cell boundaries and graphite-ferrite
interfaces. This is believed to arise from the distribu-
tion of silicon and carbon in the cast iron. The inverse
segregation of silicon at cell boundaries (Fig. 7) will
lead to a counterpart carbon distribution once the
equilibrium state has been reached. According to the
silicon content obtained from Fig. 8(a) and the
carbon-silicon equilibrium diagram of the iron-rich
corner obtained at 1000 C by Lacaze and Sundman
[19], the equilibrium carbon-silicon distribution in the
matrix of cast iron can be expressed as in Fig. 14(a).
Although the austenitization temperatures studied
ranged from 880 to 953 C, a similar trend of carbon
distribution should be obtained. It is obvious that a
carbon peak will finally be built up at the cell bound-
aries. Indeed, E P M A revealed this phenomenon (Fig.
7(c)). On approaching the equilibrium state, cell
boundaries therefore act as a carbon sink and absorb
carbon from graphite. However, since there is an enor-
mous carbon concentration gradient across the graph-
ite-ferrite interfaces, the ferrite in the vicinity of these
interfaces can easily receive carbon to form austenite.
In the absence of a carbon concentration gradient and
inverse silicon segregation, ferrite grain boundaries are
less effective for nucleation.
Concerning the growth process of austenitization, a
schematic model is proposed as shown in Figs. 14(b)
~nd 14(c). According to Kirkaldy and Young [20], the
248 J.-M. Chou et aL / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron

carbon concentration profile at various times can be

.2.9
described approximately as in Fig. 14(b). The micro-
v "~Sl C.B. '2.7 ~ structural evolution during growth is expressed in Fig.
t- '2.5 ~ 14(c). It is worth noting that during growth carbon is
O 1.2
'2.3 0
transported from a high carbon content graphite
t-
"2J
through a low carbon content ferrite grain boundary to
O
.e1.1 .1.9 ~ a medium carbon content cell boundary (Fig. 13). The
O
o '1.7 latter half of the transportation involves the diffusion of
1.0 1.5 carbon from a low to a high concentration region. The
(a) Distance (tam) driving force for carbon diffusion is the carbon poten-
tial instead of carbon concentration. It is D12 which
makes the major contribution to the diffusion and this
t- diffusion is referred to as "up-hill" diffusion [21].
oO G Figure 14(c) shows the formation procedure of
R
e- A network austenite. The growth of an austenite ring at
O p
O
_.-
b5
r-
O
H
T
E
,
c~. J graphite-ferrite interfaces and austenite at cell bound-
aries is achieved by volume diffusion of carbon from
graphite to ferrite and by boundary diffusion of carbon
o
O from graphite to cell boundaries. These diffusion paths
are shown in Fig. 13. If volume diffusion is dominant,
Ib) Distance (lum) the resultant growth rate on the austenite ring around
graphite will be greater than the austenite growth rate
FERRITE r FERRITE GRAIN r- CELL
at cell boundaries and vice versa. The microstructural
observations (Figs. 3 and 4) agree with the latter case
and thus grain boundary diffusion is believed to be
dominant. The activation energy of austenitization
(267.2 kJ mo1-1) is therefore a synthetic value of
volume diffusion and grain boundary diffusion pro-
AUSTENITE t__ GRAPHITE/FERRITE
INTERFACE cesses, but the latter has the major contribution
(c)

Fig. 14. Schematic illustration of carbon-silicon distribution (a)

at equilibrium state, and (b) during austenitization;(c) nucleation 5. Conclusions
and growth process of austenitization: C.B. cell boundary, - -
t l , - - - - t 2 , - - - t3;/3>t2 >t]. The isothermal austenitization transformation in an
unalloyed ferritic ductile cast iron was studied in the
temperature range between 880 C and 953 C. The
carbon concentration C ] at time t and distance x from major results are summarized as follows.
the interface where two components join can be (1) During austenitization, austenite nucleates pref-
expressed as erentially at cell boundaries and graphite-ferrite inter-
faces and grows by thickening and/or lengthening the
t
CO
1
+C]l existing nuclei with a rate at cell boundaries higher than
Cl---
2 that at graphite-ferrite interfaces.

--A err ;t
2,ffD--~22
2A - C l -0C l
2A
~ err
2
D~I~]
where 2=x/,]-t, A=[D1a/(DI1-D2a)][(C ~ -C)/2], C,
and C2 are the concentrations of carbon and silicon
respectively, the superscripts 0 and 1 stand for the two
components, Dll and D22 are the serf-diffusion coeffi-
cients for carbon and silicon respectively, and D~a is
the diffusion coefficient of carbon under the influence
of silicon. This equation can be applied to the present
case by summation over the silicon concentration
gradient. According to Kirkaldy and Young [20] the
(12)
(2) The austenitization reaction rate increases with
increasing temperature and the kinetics can be
described by an Avrami equation with exponent n
ranging from 1.31 to 1.51.
(3) The activation energy of austenitization is 267.2
kJ mol-1 which is believed to be a synthetic value
contributed to by volume diffusion and grain boundary
diffusion of carbon; it is about half of the value
required for an interface-controlled process.
(4) The growth of austenite was accomplished by
up-hill diffusion of carbon to cell boundaries and
volume diffusion of carbon from graphite to ferrite, but
the former was found to be dominant.
 J.-M. Chou et al. / Austenite transformation in ductile cast iron
(5) F r o m the c o m b i n e d evidence of microstructural
observations, transformation kinetics and activation
energy, it is suggested that austenitization is a diffusion-
controlled process.
Acknowledgments
T h e authors are grateful to the National Science
Council for support through grants N S C - 7 8 - 0 4 0 5 -
E 0 0 6 - 0 5 (J. M. C h o u and M. H. H o n ) and NSC-
2 9 0 2 2 F (J. L. Lee). T h a n k s are also due to the China
Steel C o r p o r a t i o n for the provision of experimental
facilities.
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