Cementite Sentence Examples

These are cementite, a definite iron carbide, Fe 3 C, harder than glass and nearly as brittle, but probably very strong under gradually and axially applied stress; and ferrite, pure or nearly pure metallic a-iron, soft, weak, with high electric conductivity, and in general like copper except in colour.

In view of the fact that the presence of 1% of carbon implies that 15% of the soft ductile ferrite is replaced by the glass-hard cementite, it is not surprising that even a little carbon influences the properties of the metal so profoundly.

But carbon affects the properties of iron not only by giving rise to varying proportions of cementite, but also both by itself shifting from one molecular state to another, and by enabling us to hold the iron itself in its unmagnetic allotropic forms, 0and 7-iron, as will be explained below.

On cooling into region 6 or 8 austenite should normally split up into ferrite and cementite, after passing through the successive stages of martensite, troostite and sorbite, Fe 0 C= Fe 3 C +Fe(i 3).

Suddenly cooled carbon steel, Steep Cast Iron no; d ` r t1?at J ustenite+ Cementite.

Eutectic here freezes 7 Austenite+Cementite Pro-eutectoid Cementite forms progressiuely 882930 1200 0 U a 5 6 ?

Beta (13) iron, an unmagnetic, intensely hard and brittle allotropic form of iron, though normal and stable only in the little triangle GHM, is yet a state through which the metal seems always to pass when the austenite of region 4 changes into the ferrite and cementite of regions 6 and 8.

Martensite, Troostite and Sorbite are the successive stages through which the metal passes in changing from austenite into ferrite and cementite.

Ferrite and cementite, already described in § 10, are the final products of the transformation of austenite in slow-cooling.

The percentage of pearlite and of free ferrite or cementite in these products is shown in fig.

The tenacity or tensile strength increases till the carbon-content reaches about 1.25%, and the cementite about 19%, and then in turn falls, a result by no means surprising.

The presence of a small quantity of the hard cementite ought naturally to strengthen the mass, by opposing the tendency of the soft ferrite to flow under any stress applied to it; but more cementite by its brittleness naturally weakens the mass, causing it to crack open under the distortion which stress inevitably causes.

The large massive plates of cementite which form the network or skeleton in hyper-eutectoid steels should, under distortion, naturally tend to cut, in the softer pearlite, chasms too serious to be healed by the inflowing of the plastic ferrite, though this ferrite flows around and Steel White Cast Iron 100 75 K 0 ?

The distortion which rails undergo in manufacture and use is incomparably less than that to which rivets are subjected, and thus rail steel may safely be much richer in carbon and hence in cementite, and therefore much stronger and harder, so as to better endure the load and the abrasion of the passing wheels.

Thus the typical carbon-content may be taken as about o 05% for rivets and tubes, 0.20% for boiler plates, and 0.50 to 0.75% for rails, implying the presence of o 75% of cementite in the first two, 3% in the third and 7.5% to 11.25% in the last.

Carbon-Content of Hardened Steels.-Turning from these cases in which the steel is used in the slowly cooled state, so that it is a mixture of pearlite with ferrite or cementite, i.e.

The cementite which has thus far been forming may be called " pro-eutectoid " cementite, because it forms before the remaining austenite reacnes the eutectoid composition.

The passage of this large quar`it-y of carbon and iron, 0.90% of the former and 12.6 of the latter, from a state of mere solution as hardenite to one of definite chemical union as cementite, together with the passage of the iron itself from the y to the a state, evolves so much heat as actually to heat the mass up so that it brightens in a striking manner.

Again, as the temperature in turn falls past Ar l this hardenite mother-metal splits up into cementite and ferrite grouped together as pearlite, with the resulting recalescence, and the mass, as shown in Alloys, Pl., fig.

In short, from Ar 3 to Ar t the excess substance ferrite or cementite, in hypoand hyper-eutectoid steels respectively, progressively crystallizes out as a network or skeleton within the austenite mothermetal, which thus progressively approaches the composition of hardenite, reaching it at Ar t, and there splitting up into ferrite and cementite interstratified as pearlite.

At this point selection ceases; the remaining molten metal freezes as a whole, and in freezing splits up into a conglomerate eutectic of (1) austenite of about 2.2% of carbon, and therefore saturated with that element, and (2) cementite; and with this eutectic is mixed the " primary " austenite which froze out as the temperature sank from v to v'.

Here the mass consists of (1) primary austenite, (2) eutectic austenite and cementite interstratified and (3) pro-eutectoid cementite.

Here the black bat-like patches are the masses of pearlite plus proeutectoid cementite resulting from the splitting up of the primary austenite.

In the black-and-white ground mass the white is the eutectic cementite, and the black the eutectic austenite, now split up into pearlite and pro-eutectoid cementite, which cannot here be distinguished from each other.

The black bat-like areas are the primary austenite, the zebra-marked ground mass the eutectic, composed of white stripes of cementite and black stripes of austenite.

Both the primary and eutectic austenite have changed in cooling into a mixture of pearlite and pro-eutectoid cementite, too fine to be distinguished here.

Though carbon passes far more readily under most conditions into the state of cementite than into that of graphite, yet of the two graphite is the more stable and cementite the less stable, or the ' metastable " form.

Thus cementite is always tending to change over into graphite by the reaction Fe C = 3Fe +Gr, though this tendency is often held in check by different causes; but graphite never changes back directly into cementite, at least according to our present theory.

The fact that graphite may dissolve in the iron as austenite, and that when this latter again breaks up it is more likely to yield cementite than graphite, is only an apparent and not a real exception to this law of the greater stability of graphite than of cementite.

Slow cooling, slow solidification, the presence of an abundance of carbon, and the presence of silicon, all favour the formation of graphite; rapid cooling, the presence of sulphur, and in most cases that of manganese, favour the formation of cementite.

The joint effect of such chilling and such annealing is to make the metal much harder than if slowly cooled, because for each 1% of graphite which the chilling suppresses, 15% of the glass-hard cementite is substituted.

The molecular freedom which this high temperature gives enables the cementite to change gradually into a mixture of graphite and austenite with the result that, after the castings have been cooled and their austenite has in cooling past Aci changed into pearlite and ferrite, the mixture of cementite and pearlite of which they originally consisted has now given place to one of fine or " temper " graphite and ferrite, with more or less pearlite according to the completeness of the transfer of the carbon to the state of graphite.

Thus, first, for the brittle glass-hard cementite there is gradually substituted the relatively harmless temper graphite; and, second, even this is in part removed by surface oxidation.

In the former case there is no later chance to remove sulphur, a minute quantity of which does great harm by leading to the formation of cementite instead of graphite and ferrite, and thus making the cast-iron castings too hard to be cut to exact shape with steel tools; in the latter case the converting or purifying processes, which are essentially oxidizing ones, though they remove the other impurities, carbon, silicon, phosphorus and manganese, are not well adapted to desulphurizing, which needs rather deoxidizing conditions, so as to cause the formation of calcium sulphide, than oxidizing ones.

Of these several qualities which cast iron may have, fluidity is given by keeping the sulphur-content low and phosphoruscontent high; and this latter element must be kept low if shock is to be resisted; but strength, hardness, endurance of shock, density and expansion in solidifying are controlled essentially by the distribution of the carbon between the states of graphite and cementite, and this in turn is controlled chiefly by the proportion of silicon, manganese and sulphur present, and in many cases by the rate of cooling.

This carbon may all be present as graphite, as in typical grey cast iron; or all present as cementite, Fe 3 C, as in typical white cast iron; or, as is far more usual, part of it may be present as graphite and part as cementite.

Next let us imagine that, in a series of cast irons all containing 4% of carbon, the graphite of the initial skeleton changes gradually into cementite and thereby becomes part of the matrix, a change which of course has two aspects, first, a gradual thinning of the graphite skeleton and a decrease of its continuity, and second, a gradual introduction of cementite into the originally pure ferrite matrix.

As, in succeeding members of this same series of cast irons, more of the graphite of the initial skeleton changes into cementite and thereby becomes part of the metallic matrix, so the graphite skeleton becomes progressively thinner and more discontinuous, and the matrix richer in cementite and hence in carbon and hence equivalent first to higher and higher carbon steel, such as tool steel of I carbon, file steel of 1.50%, wire-die steel of 2% carbon and then to white cast iron, which consists essentially of much cementite with little ferrite.

Above the diagram are given the names of the different classes of cast iron to which different stages in the change from graphite to cementite correspond, and above these the names of kinds of steel or cast iron to which at the corresponding stages the constitution of the matrix corresponds, while below the diagram are given the properties of the cast iron as a whole corresponding to these stages, and still lower the purposes for which these stages fit the cast iron, first because of its strength and shock-resisting power, and second because of its hardness.

Influence of the Constitution of Cast Iron on its Properties.- How should the hardness, strength and ductility, or rather shockresisting power, of the cast iron be affected by this progressive change from graphite into cementite ?

First, the hardness (VU) should increase progressively as the soft ferrite and graphite are replaced by the glass-hard cementite.

Second, though the brittleness should be lessened somewhat by the decrease in the extent to which the continuity of the strong matrix is broken up by the graphite skeleton, yet this effect is outweighed greatly by that of the rapid substitution in the matrix of the brittle cementite for the' very ductile copper-like ferrite, so that the brittleness increases continuously (RS), from that of the very grey graphitic cast irons, which, like that of soapstone, is so slight that the metal can endure severe shock and even indentation without breaking, to that of the pure white cast iron which is about as brittle as porcelain.

Hence, as with the progressive transfer of the carbon from the graphitic to the cementite state in our imaginary series of cast irons, the combined carbon present in the matrix increases, so does the tensile strength of the mass as a whole for two reasons; first, because the strength of the matrix itself is increasing (DE), and second, because the discontinuity is decreasing with the decreasing proportion of graphite.

The resultant of these two effects has not yet been well established; but it is probable that the strongest cast iron has a little more than 1% of carbon combined as cementite, so that its matrix is nearly equivalent to the strongest of the steels.

To sum this up, as graphite is replaced by carbon combined as cementite, the hardness, brittleness and density increase, and the expansion in solidification decreases, in both cases continuously, while the tensile strength increases till the combined carbon-content rises a little above I %, and then in turn decreases.

Hence objects which need much machining are made rich in graphite, so that gressively from the state of graphite to that of cementite as we pass they may be cut easily, and those of the latter class rich in from specimen to specimen, may, with the foregoing picture of a cementite so that they may not wear out.

The change from graphite into cementite is supposed to distribution of the carbon between these two states, so as to give take place as we pass from left to right.

The permissible phosphorus-content is lessened by the presence of either much sulphur or much manganese, and by rapid cooling, as for instance in case of thin castings, because each of these three things, by leading to the formation of the brittle cementite, in itself creates brittleness which aggravates that caused by phosphorus.

Steel differs in many ways from iron in respect of atmospheric corrosion; the heterogeneous nature of steel gives occasion to a selective rusting, ferrite is much more readily attacked than the cementite and pearlite; moreover, the introduction of other elements may retard rusting; this is particularly the case with the nickel-steels.

Troostite and Sorbite, indeed, seem to be chiefly very finely divided mixtures of ferrite and cementite, and it is probably because of this fineness that sorbitic steel has its remarkable combination of strength and elasticity with ductility which fits it for resisting severe vibratory and other dynamic stresses, such as those to which rails and shafting are exposed.

Ferrite and cementite are thus the normal and usual constituents of slowly cooled steel, including all structural steels, rail steel, &c., and of white cast iron (see § 18).

As the temperature sinks still farther, pro-eutectoid cementite (see § 22) forms progressively in the austenite both primary and eutectic, and this pro-eutectoid cementite as it comes into existence tends to assemble in the form of a network enveloping the kernels or grains of the austenite from which it springs.

The " tread " or circumferential part of the mould itself is made of iron, because this, by conducting the heat away from the casting rapidly, makes it cool quickly, and thus causes most of the carbon here to form cementite, and thus in turn makes the tread of the wheel intensely hard; while those parts of the mould which come in contact with the central parts of the wheel are made of sand, which conducts the heat away from the molten metal so slowly that it solidifies slowly, with the result that most of its carbon forms graphite, and here the metal is soft and shock-resisting.