In spheroidal graphite cast iron the size distribution of graphite nodules affects the mechanical, thermal and other properties of the material. The mean nodule diameter, the average nodule number per unit area, and other parameters are used to express a quantitative description of the distribution. However, these factors obtained by planar observation of a section show only the two-dimensional distribution of graphite nodules which are actually distributed three-dimensionally in the matrix. A method is suggested in this paper to convert the two-dimensional distribution to a three-dimensional distribution based on Saltykov's theory, and is applied to some specimens with various sizes of graphite nodules.
Calculations of three-dimensional size distributions showed that the relative number of small nodules was larger than that in the observed two-dimensional distribution. The effect of large nodules in the volume distribution was stronger than in the area distribution. The mean diameters calculated three-dimensionally from the volume fraction and two-dimensionally from the area fraction were identical. There was a good linear relation between the median diameters in volume and area distributions, the former being about 10% larger than the latter, Average nodule number per unit volume and area, and average distance between nodules in volume and area also correlated well. Accordingly, parameters from two-dimensional observation are acceptable in making a qualitative study of graphite nodule distributions. It must be noted, however, that nodules of a large diameter with very small frequency affect the volume fraction and may influence some properties of the material.
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