A foundry research project has been recently initiated at RTIT in order to better understand the fabrication of as-cast heavy section DI parts meeting high impact energy requirements at low temperatures. The experimental castings have the following dimensions 180 mm x 180 mm x 190 mm. The achieved as-cast Charpy impact strengths were as follows: 17 J (RT), 16 J (-20°C) and 11 J (-40°C). The foundry process, the chemical composition and the microstructure of this experimental casting are compared to the ones of various examples in order to show the detrimental effects of residual elements, microshrinkage and microcarbide on the impact properties. Finally, quality index empirical models (based on casting chemical compositions) are used to analyse the impact tests results. This paper illustrates that an adequate nodule count can contribute to reducing the detrimental effects of the residual elements and microsegregation
