Fatigue Characteristic of Spheroidal Vanadium Carbides Cast Iron

The purpose of this study is to investigate the fatigue characteristic and fatigue fracture mechanism of the high V-Cr-Ni spheroidal carbide cast iron (SCI-VCrNi) with spheroidal vanadium carbide (VC) dispersed within austenitic stainless matrix microstructure. The SCI-VCrNi that has high hardness was developed by 10mass%V adding to 18-8 stainless steel with spheroidal VC is distributed in the matrix. Firstly from the plane bending, the fatigue limit σw has been found to the 358MPa of SCI-VCrNi. Secondly, fracture surface observations were performed to clarify the fatigue mechanism of SCI-VCrNi. The fracture surface of SCI-VCrNi was so rough that the beach mark could not be observed. So, SEM was employed to observe, the fatigue fracture surface which showed a particular fatigue pattern. Also, many fracture cracks of VC were observed. In addition, the secondary cracks are shown at the interface between VC and the matrix. It can be suggested that the bondability between VC and the matrix is strong, and therefore, the propagation of cracks was delayed by the breakage of VC.