The current paper focuses on development of a method for studying micro-scale strains on the microstructure of ferritic cast iron. For this purpose, in-situ tensile tests were done under the optical microscope combined with digital image correlation (DIC). Critical in this development was to be able to achieve a reliable high spatial resolution of strain around microstructural features, such as graphite particles. Measurement of local strain fi elds in cast iron materials have so far been relying on displacement of naturally occurring microstructure patterns such as graphite particles, which limits the spatial resolution of strain measurement. In order to increase the spatial resolution of the measured strain, a pit etching procedure was applied to generate a random speckle pattern on the ferritic matrix. Th e critical challenges of in-situ investigation of microstructural deformation were identifi ed as speckle pattern quality and accurate selection of subset size and strain window size. Th e traceability of this method was studied by benchmarking the measured elastic modulus with that obtained from full-scale tensile test. Th e elastic modulus calculated from average strains, measured by DIC, showed a good agreement with material’s elastic modulus. Th is validates the measured localized strain values and can be used as a validation for modeling of local deformation.

This paper presents a study on microstructural deformation of a ferritic–pearlitic ductile iron, utilizing in-situ tensile testing, digital image correlation (DIC) and finite element analysis (FEA). For this purpose, the in-situ tensile test and DIC were used to measure local strain fields in the deformed microstructure. Furthermore, a continuum finite element (FE) model was used to predict the strain maps in the microstructure. Ferrite and pearlite parameters for the FE-model were optimized based on the Ramberg–Osgood relation. The DIC and simulation strain maps were compared qualitatively and quantitatively. Similar strain patterns containing shear bands in identical locations were observed in both strain maps. The average and localized strain values of the DIC and simulation conformed to a large extent. It was found that the Ramberg–Osgood model can be used to capture the main trends of strain localization. The discrepancies between the simulated and DIC results were explained based on the; (i) subsurface effect of the microstructure; (ii) differences in the strain spatial resolutions of the DIC and simulation and (iii) abrupt changes in strain prediction of the continuum FE-model in the interface of the phases due to the sudden changes in the elastic modulus.

This paper focuses on the deformation and crack evolution in ductile iron under tension, investigated by coupled in-situ tensile test and finite element simulation. Micro-crack initiation and development were tracked at the microstructure level. The local strain around micro-cracks were measured by using Digital Image Correlation (DIC). The results obtained from the experiments were compared to a finite element  model including cohesive elements to enable crack propagation. The resulting local strains were analyzed in connection to the observed micro-crack incidents in both DIC and simulation. The predictions of the finite element model showed good agreement with those obtained from the experiment, in the case of early decohesion, the amplitude of the strain localization and macroscopic stress-strain behavior. The results revealed that decohesion was commonly initiated early around graphite surrounded by ferrite which was identified as high strain regions. By increasing the global deformation, micro-cracks initiated in these areas and propagated but were arrested within the ferrite zone due to strain hardening and stress shielding of pearlite. Both the DIC and the simulation revealed that irregular shaped graphite were more susceptible to strain localization and micro-crack initiation. It could be observed that the cohesive model was able to capture the main trends of localized plastic deformation and crack initiation