Characterization of surface fish-eye casting defect

Fish-eye defects are usually observed in the surface of ductile iron casting. Their formation mechanism is not fully understood and very little has been published concerning the subject. This paper investigates the sleeve material effect on fish-eye defect formation in ductile cast irons. Unburnt exothermic and insulating sleeves with different fluorine concentrations have been crushed and mixed in with green sand. These mixtures have been used as facing sands for the casting molds. The morphological and chemical characterization of the fish-eye defects have been performed by light optical microscopy (LOM) and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS). Experimental results suggest that surface fish-eye defects on ductile cast irons are caused by the buildup of fluorine-containing sleeve materials in the molding sand.