Secrets of your iron

July 2015

Are there things in the microstructure of your iron that you are missing?

We are in the early stages of investigating pearlite in iron, and collecting data on various iron
types. If you would like to participate in this study, please contact us so that we can arrange a
time and place to take samples of your iron. We would ask you to also provide us with a
chemistry analysis and help evaluate the micro we take.

Recently we took a sample of what is supposed to be a soft ferritic iron and found a few
surprises.

The green line is the rate of cooling or 1st derivative

Here is the section of the thermal analysis curve showing the solid state formations in a ferritic
base iron. Besides the normally expected energetic reactions, we have a possible Steadite
arrest at the time of 1:37, and a possible stress caused tearing going on at about 9:20.

Often when we examine micros, we miss the small stuff. But then we are also at a loss to
explain why certain physical properties are not met. TA microstructure has the potential to tell
us more about our iron than the typical quick micro can.

The green curve spans about 3 degrees per second, while the temperature curve (red) spans
900 degrees, a magnification of sensitivity of 300x. The following graphs will take that to
15,000x and finally to 150,000 times the sensitivity of the temperature curve.

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Secrets of your iron
July 2015

Second Derivative (blue line) passing upward through zero (See red circles above).
These are minima’s in the rate of cooling or the strongest points of heat generation in the
temperature curve. These tell us about arrests that are too small to see in the green curve. The
blue curve is at 50x of the green curve.

Third Derivative (red) passing through zero (either direction)

These are signals of something changing in the metal. In addition to the usual expected changes
reflecting the rate of change of the second derivative, we have two additionally unexpected
active regions (circled in blue). The red curve is at 500x of the green curve.

Copyright MeltLab Systems 2015 – All rights reserved2

Secrets of your iron
July 2015

Summary

(The following numbered events can be found on the phase diagram above. Each item number below corresponds
to its respective number above. The dotted green line shows roughly the path of solidification of the sample
above.)
1. Crossing the ACM line into the Austenite solid solution of carbon in gamma iron 1764.4
2. Passing out of the Austenite area at 1360.6 F
3. Eutectoid at 1317.1
4. First indication of residual at 1242.4
5. Second indication of residual at 1211.8 (strongest)
6. Solidus at 1987.1
7. Unknown reaction at 1737.3 inside Austenite zone
8. Unknown reactions between 1616.1 and 1566.3
9. Unmarked endothermic reaction at 1336.6 F

Copyright MeltLab Systems 2015 – All rights reserved3

Secrets of your iron
July 2015

In the next few months we will be teaching MeltLab to read and interpret these arrests. Since
we are self-funded we can use some help from interested foundries by way of micros and
chemistry analysis of these samples. If you would like to participate in this study, please contact
us so that we can arrange a time and place to take samples of your iron.

David Sparkman

Copyright MeltLab Systems 2015 – All rights reserved4