Cast high-manganese Hadfield steel is commonly used for machine components operating under dynamic load conditions. Their high fracture toughness and abrasive wear resistance is the result of an austenitic structure, which - while being ductile - at the same time tends to surface harden under the effect of cold work. Absence of dynamic loads (e.g. in the case of sand abrasion) causes rapid and premature wear of parts. In order to improve the abrasive wear resistance of cast high-manganese steel for operation under the conditions free from dynamic loads, primary titanium carbides are produced in this cast steel during melting process to obtain in castings, after melt solidification, the microstructure consisting of an austenitic matrix and primary carbides uniformly distributed therein. After heat treatment, the microhardness of the austenitic matrix of such cast steel is up to 580 μHV20 and the resulting carbides may reach even 4000 μHV20. The impact strength of this cast steel varies from 57 to 129 and it decreases with titanium content. Compared to common cast Hadfield steel, the abrasive wear resistance determined in Miller test is at least twice as high for the 0.4% Ti alloy and continues growing with titanium content.

Cast stainless steel of the Cr-Ni duplex type is used, among others, for the cast parts of pumps and valves handling various chemically

aggressive media. Therefore, the main problem discussed in this article is the problem of abrasion wear resistance in a mixture of SiC and

water and resistance to electrochemical corrosion in a 3% NaCl- H2O solution of selected cast steel grades, i.e. typical duplex cast steel,

high silicon and manganese duplex cast steel, and Cr-Ni austenitic cast steel (type AISI 316L). The study shows that the best abrasion

wear resistance comparable to Ni-Hart cast iron was obtained in the cast duplex steel, where Ni was partially replaced with Mn and N.

This cast steel was also characterized by the highest hardness and matrix microhardness among all the tested cast steel grades. The best

resistance to electrochemical corrosion in 3% NaCl- H2O solution showed the cast duplex steel with high content of Cr, Mo and N. The

addition of Ni plays rather insignificant role in the improvement of corrosion resistance of the materials tested.

A possibility to control the strength, hardness and ductility of the L35HM low-alloy structural cast steel by the applied tempering

temperature is discussed in the paper. Tests were carried out on samples taken from the two randomly selected industrial melts. Heat

treatment of the cast samples included quenching at 900 °C, cooling in an aqueous solution of polymer, and tempering at 600 and 650 °C.

The obtained results showed that the difference in the tempering temperature equal to 50 °C can cause the difference of 121 MPa in the

values of UTS and of 153 MPa in the values of 0.2%YS. For both melts tempered at 600 °C, the average values of UTS and 0.2%YS were

equal to 995 MPa and 933 MPa, respectively. The values of EL and RA did not show any significant differences. Attention was drawn to

large differences in strength and hardness observed between the melts tempered at 600 and 650 °C. Despite differences in the mechanical

properties of the examined cast steel, the obtained results were superior to those specified by the standard.

The effect of CaSiAl modification (43-49% Ca, 43-48% Si, 2% Al) on the non-metallic inclusions and mechanical properties of cast lowcarbon steel is discussed. Tests were carried out on the cast steel with 0.2% C and micro-additives of V and Nb, used mainly for heavy steel castings (e.g. slag ladles). The modifier in an amount of 1.5 and 3 kg / Mg was introduced to the liquid steel before tapping the metal into a ladle. Test ingots of Y type and a weight of 10 kg were cast and then subjected to a normalizing heat treatment. Using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the non-metallic inclusions present in as-cast samples was carried out. Additionally, tests of mechanical strength and impact strength were performed on cast steel with and without the different content of modifier. It was found that increasing the modifier addition affected impact strength but had no significant effect on tensile strength and yield strength. The material with high impact strength had the smallest area fraction of non-metallic inclusions in the microstructure (0.20%). The introduction of modifiers changed the morphology of non-metallic inclusions from dendritic to regular and nodular shapes.

The results of the modification of austenitic matrix in cast high-manganese steel containing 11÷19% Mn with additions of Cr, Ni and Ti

were discussed. The introduction of carbide-forming alloying elements to this cast steel leads to the formation in matrix of stable complex

carbide phases, which effectively increase the abrasive wear resistance in a mixture of SiC and water. The starting material used in tests

was a cast Hadfield steel containing 11% Mn and 1.34% C. The results presented in the article show significant improvement in abrasive

wear resistance and hardness owing to the structure modification with additions of Cr and Ti.

Characteristics of the microstructure of corrosion-resistant cast 24Cr-5Ni-2.5Mo duplex steel after introduction of 0.98, 1.67 and 4.3% Si were described. Based on the test results it has been found that silicon addition introduced to the corrosion-resistant cast two-phase duplex steel significantly reduces austenite content in the alloy matrix. Increasing silicon content in the test alloy to 4.3% has resulted, in addition to the elimination of austenite, also in the precipitation of Si-containing intermetallic phases at the grain boundaries and inside the grains. The precipitates were characterized by varying content of Cr and Mo, indicating the presence in the structure of more than one type of the brittle phase characteristic for this group of materials. The simulation using Thermo-Calc software has confirmed the presence of ferrite in all tested alloys. In the material containing 4.3% Si, the Cr and Si enriched precipitates, such as G phase and Cr3Si were additionally observed to occur.