Advances in Cast Iron, Carbon Steel and Coatings

Dear Colleagues,

Cast irons with flack and spheroidal graphite shapes have excellent wear resistance and high damping capacity, as well as a relatively low cost of production compared with other types of ferrous materials. Moreover, cast iron is used as an engineering material in relatively high-temperature environmental applications. Cast iron is among the most used casting metals because of its excellent castability, good machinability, higher damping and relatively high wear resistance. Ductile iron is well known as nodular/spheroidal graphite iron in which the graphite is present as small spheres. The relatively higher carbon and silicon percentages, as well as the low cooling rate observed during the solidification of ductile iron, make eutectic graphite separate from molten iron. Ductile iron containing spheroidal graphite shows relatively higher strength and elongation than grey iron or malleable iron. The morphology of graphite formed during solidification is an important factor that governs the microstructure formation of ductile iron castings and hence their mechanical properties.

Carbon steel is the most important engineering material for its high variety of physical and mechanical properties. Carbon steel is classified into four classes based on carbon content, e.g., low-carbon, medium-carbon, and high-carbon steels. As the carbon content rises, steel can become harder and stronger through heat treatment.

The optimization of fabrication process parameters, molten metal solidification and surface/bulk treatments is essential to achieving the optimal combination of microstructure and mechanical properties. The aim of this Special Issue, entitled “Advances in Cast Iron, Carbon Steel and Coatings”, is to collect full papers, communications and review articles highlighting recent achievements in cast irons and carbon steel, with a special focus placed on advances in fabrication processing and coating techniques for higher-performance engineering applications. The submission of research dealing with heat treatments and coating systems for application in different industrial fields is also encouraged.

Prof. Dr. Mohamed Ramadan
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cast iron
• carbon steel
• metal coating
• solidification
• microstructures
• mechanical properties
• tribological behavior
• corrosion resistance
• coatings
• casting
• process parameters
• modeling