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Posted by Gordon on Monday, February 09, 2009 at 04:40:19 :
In Reply to: Okay, now, what's "maleable iron" and "mehanite&a posted by David Sherman on Monday, February 09, 2009 at 02:59:02 :
.. when I used to work on these things.
1. Grey cast iron is a granular structure with carbon flakes, cood for castings, good strenght in compression, but can be shatterered.
2. Mild steel is chemically the same but worked, refined, bits added and taken away. Fine structure, will bend instead of break when hit (depending on how hard of course)
3. Nodular iron / Malleable iron is cast iron, but the carbon has been made into nodules (balls) rather than flakes. This gives mechanical properties about halfway between grey cast iron and mild steel.
So in building an old truck, you would use cast iron for the engine block, steel for the chassis, and nodular / malleable iron for things like axle housings where you want to cast them but you want impact resistance and toughness.
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