The Assessment of Resistance to Thermal Fatigue and Thermal Shock of Cast Iron Used for Glass Moulds

Constantly developing production process and high requirements concerning the quality of glass determine the need for continuous improvement of tools and equipment needed for its production. Such tools like forms, most often made of cast-iron, are characterized by thick wall thickness compared to their overall dimensions and work in difficult conditions such as heating of the surface layer, increase of thermal stresses resulting from the temperature gradient on the wall thickness, occurrence of thermal shock effect, resulting from cyclically changing temperatures during filling and emptying of the mould. There is no best and universal method for assessing how samples subjected to cyclic temperature changes behave. Research on thermal fatigue is a difficult issue, mainly due to the instability of this parameter, which depends on many factors, such as the temperature gradient in which the element works, the type of treatment and the chemical composition of the material. Important parameters for these materials are at high temperature resistance to thermal shock and thermal fatigue what will be presented in this paper.