Cast Iron in China

Cast iron mainly includes grey iron, ductile iron, malleable iron and austenitic iron. In China, most of iron foundries could produce grey iron and ductile iron, but seldom could produce malleable and austenitic iron.

In China, most of iron foundries could produce the cast iron from grey iron grade 150 to ductile iron grade 600, and only few of them could produce ductile iron upper than grade 600, such as grade 700, 800 and 900 since higher grade will need higher requirements to the heat treatment.

Cast iron prices are mainly affected by the pig iron prices, other material costs and manpower costs. Of course, as for the clients overseas, the exchange rate of USD to RMB will also be an important factor to the prices of iron castings in China.

In China, the main production processes for cast iron include green sand, resin sand, shell molding, automatic molding, lost foam casting process, and seldom by investment casting process. Because of the high melting temperature of cast iron, the most of iron castings were produced by sand casting processes, only small amount was made by investment casting process.

Honestly, the quality of cast iron in China is not as good as that in USA, so if you want to purchase iron castings for automotive industries, you should take a careful selection to cast iron suppliers in China. However, as for the most of cast iron products, most of good iron foundries in China could meet the requirements.

Most of iron foundries have the chemical and physical inspection devices in-house, so the common quality inspection will not be a problem. As for the impact test, hydraulic test and radiographic test, most of foundries will have to entrust other labs or inspectors to perform. As for the ultrasonic test, according to my work experience in Dandong Foundry in China, this test was not suitable for iron castings since x ray test can not distinguish the similar inside casting defects such as air holes, shrinkage and low density.

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