Leading Cast Iron Companies

While there are several specific casting techniques in use to produce cast iron parts, all follow this basic procedure of heating, molding, cooling and ejecting. Read More…

Cast Iron Cast iron encompasses a large group of ferrous alloys containing between 1 and 3 % silicone and 2 to 4% carbon with a core of about 95% iron by weight.

With over 50 years in cast iron metalworking, you can trust Mesa Castings’ expertise in grey iron, white iron, nickel-chromium alloyed & high chromium alloyed castings. The finest ductile and abrasion resistant iron castings individually engineered using the latest technology, exceeding ASTM, ASME & SAE. We combine over 100 years of experience with the finest materials to produce high quality.

Mesa Castings, Inc. $$$

In need of alloy castings, carbon steel castings, ductile iron castings or gray iron castings? We invite you to use our ISO 9001:2000-certified company. Thus far, we have produced product for many industries: agricultural; bridge and crane; drilling and mining; fittings; glass; tool and die; tire; valves.

Quaker City Castings, Inc. $$$

American Iron & Alloys Corporation is a leading manufacturer of gray iron castings and ductile iron castings. Our Versa-Bar brand of castings comes in various sizes and shapes and can be custom cast. We provide a wide variety of industries with quality cost-efficient castings.

American Iron & Alloys Corporation $$$

Impro Industries is globally recognized as a leading provider of high-precision, high-complexity, and mission-critical casting and machined components. Industries served include automotive, aerospace, medical, and many mor. Our team is dedicated to the quality of our every project, ensuring the highest customer satisfaction. Contact us today to learn more about our grey iron casting capabilities.

Impro Industries USA, Inc. $$$
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There are two predominant types of cast iron, those being grey iron and white iron. The former has a graphitic structure, the deflection of which provides the namesake color on fracture surfaces. White iron, however, has small white deposits of cementite rather than being completely pallid. The main differences between the two are silicone content and cooling times, both of which have a significant impact on the physical and mechanical behavior of the alloy.

White iron has a low carbon content and is cooled at a fast rate to produce a brittle cast part with good hardness and abrasion resistance. These are used in a number of wear applications such as slurry pumps, liners, grinding mills and pulverizers. Grey iron castings on the other hand are produced through the slow cooling of high carbon iron alloys and are less brittle allowing their use as crankshafts, support beams, engine blocks and more.

In addition to these two types, iron foundries and metallurgical engineers continue to develop more malleable and ductile irons that exhibit the beneficial characteristics of cast iron, but with significant reductions to brittleness due to a spheroid rather than flaked internal structure. These specialized alloys are becoming increasingly common in the industrial world.

Although pure iron is found only in meteorites, the element is one of the most abundant on Earth making up 5% of the crust and 35% of the total mass. Mining operations extract the element from iron ore and oxides such as magnetite, hematite, limonite, goethite and siderite which contain high levels of iron. These oxides are smelted to produce what is known as pig iron, the base material for cast iron.

The stock forms are heated in a special blast furnace known as a cupola. Scrap iron and steel are added to the molten mixture to produce cast iron. Once in a molten state this metal is poured into a cast where it is cooled at controlled rates before a finished or near finished part is ejected or extracted. Some of the more popular methods used today for iron castings are die casting, centrifugal casting and sand casting.

Die casting is used to manufacture complex parts at high production rates, centrifugal casting creates cylindrical parts and sand casting uses expendable synthetic or natural sand molds to create rough parts. These processes result in easily machined cast iron components with high compression strength, low melting points, good thermal conductivity and energy dissipation, wear resistance and fluidity.

Cast Iron Informational Video

 

Grey Iron Castings Power Pages

Iron Castings

Iron Castings

An iron casting is a hard product obtained from combining iron with carbon. This can be readily cast in a mold, and it contains a higher proportion of carbon compared to steel. The proportion typically ranges from 2 to 4.3...

Types of Casting Processes

Types of casting processes

The casting process is an ancient art that goes back several thousand years to the beginning of written history. The archeological record has finds that document the use of the casting process over 6000 years ago around 3000 BC or BCE...

Sand Casting

Sand Casting

Sand casting is a manufacturing process in which liquid metal is poured into a sand mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape and then allowed to solidify. Casting is a manufacturing process in which...

Forging

Forged Part

Forging is a metal working process that manipulates, shapes, deforms, and compresses metal to achieve a desired form, configuration, or appearance outlined by a metal processing design or diagram. Depending on the type of metal and the...

Die Casting

Die Casting

Die casting is a high pressure metal casting process that forces molten metal into a mold. It produces dimensionally accurate precision metal parts with a high quality finish. Its ability to produce detailed parts makes it perfect for the mass production of products...

Investment Casting

Investment Casting

Investment casting is a metal working process that uses a ceramic shell built over a wax pattern to produce parts with extraordinarily uniform and smooth surfaces. The wax pattern is produced from an aluminum die.The final products of investment casting are without parting lines, mold half marks, or other deformities...

Castings & Forgings
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