Well, I can't give you the chemisty and physics handbook answer, but I can tell you what i know about these matterials.
Cast Iron is magnetic and is conductive. It's magnetic proterties vary widely based on specific metalurgy, and how the matterial has been worked. (heated, cooled, hammered, etc) I'm told you can make a pretty decent magnet with cast iron if you cool it from liquid at the right pace and keep it under a magnetic field. I think that the goal is to grow larger crystals, and keep them all oriented.
Cast Iron is used a lot in machine componants. It is cheap and can be cast! (duh). Most milling machines for example are predominatly cast iron by weight. The calipers that sqweeze the rotors on the brakes of you car are probebly cast iron. The engine block most certainly is... though a pretty high grade.
The down sides of cast iron are that it is heavy, has low tensile strength (ie very brittle), can be quite abrasive making it hard to machine well and is realitively soft.... oh, and it rusts... and it doesn't weld well at all.
But Cast Iron is a pretty broad term that covers many different alloys. You can also cast steel and get a much higher quality result.
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July 8th, 2005, 18:03
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