Historically, inoculation has been around since the 1930s. Over the years, many different theories have evolved to explain how inoculation works. At the same time, many different inoculation compositions have been developed for use in foundry operations. In today?s foundry, the inoculation process utilizes a typical addition of between 0.05 to... more

Historically, inoculation has been around since the 1930s. Over the years, many different theories have evolved to explain how inoculation works. At the same time, many different inoculation compositions have been developed for use in foundry operations.

In today?s foundry, the inoculation process utilizes a typical addition of between 0.05 to 1% of a specialized FeSi alloy containing controlled amounts of one or more elements, including Al, Ca, Ba, Sr, Ce, La, Mn, Bi, S, O, and Zr. The inoculant provides nucleation sites that promote graphite precipitation and growth, together with iron solidification based on a stable Fe-C system. This inoculation effect can be measured using a chill wedge or thermal analysis.

In this presentation, the history and evolution of inoculation will be presented along with a description of the common understanding of what is an inoculant, how the effect and performance of an inoculant can be measured, and what factors can affect inoculation performance. less