Material Degradation Of Ancient Iron Pot By Repeated Heating For One Thousand Years

The microstructural changes of three pieces from an ancient iron pot were studied in order to identify present the material degradation due to repeated heating for one-thousand years. The microstructures of the pieces were divided into the areas of ferrite/graphite, ferrite/pearlite, and corroded oxidation. The area of ferrite/graphite was undergone by severe Galvanic corrosion, but that of ferrite/pearlite was not even during a thousand years' using. The shape of the graphites was coexisted with types of A, B, and C of as modern graphite classification. In the ferrite/pearlite area, abnormal acicula precipitates with a high aspect ratio of 0.2 mu m thickness and several hundreds mu m length were presented. They might be a kind of carbide in the ferrite matrix with its special precipitate plane.