The information provided in this article is intended for those individuals who want to determine why a casting component failed to perform its intended purpose. It is also intended to provide insights for potential casting applications so that the likelihood of failure to perform the intended function is decreased. The article addresses factors that may cause failures in castings for each metal type, starting with gray iron and progressing to ductile iron, steel, aluminum, and copper-base alloys. It describes the general root causes of failure attributed to the casting material, production method, and/or design. The article also addresses conditions related to the casting process but not specific to any metal group, including misruns, pour shorts, broken cores, and foundry expertise. The discussion in each casting metal group includes factors concerning defects that can occur specific to the metal group and progress from melting to solidification, casting processing, and finally how the removal of the mold material can affect performance.

The term cast iron designates a group of materials that contain more than one constituent in their microstructure due to excess carbon that result in unique characteristics such as the fracture appearance and graphite morphology. This article discusses the classification of cast iron and the various metallurgical aspects, such as the composition, alloying element, solidification, and graphite morphologies, of different types of cast iron. It describes the physical properties for various cast irons and the influence of microstructure and chemical composition on each property. The article provides a detailed account on thermal properties, conductive properties, magnetic properties, and acoustic properties of cast iron. It also examines heat treatment, namely, stress relieving, annealing, normalizing, through hardening, and surface hardening. The article presents a discussion on the welding, machining and grinding, and coating of the types of cast iron.

This article begins with a description of the classes and grades of ductile iron. It discusses the factors affecting the mechanical properties of ductile iron. The article reviews the hardness properties, tensile properties, shear and torsional properties, compressive properties, fatigue properties, fracture toughness, and physical properties of ductile iron and compares them with other cast irons to aid the designer in materials selection. It concludes with information on austempered ductile iron.