Valve Rocker Arm Material for Investment Casting

In order to develop the valve rocker arm material for the new type engine, we investigated various materials whose chemical compositions were selected using 30% chromium cast iron, which had shown good results in screening evaluation tests, as the basis. High chromium cast irons are well known for their abrasive wear resistance, but it has been very difficult to apply them for use as rocker arm material because their machinability is very poor, and because it is difficult for them to have a regular microstructure.

In this paper, both the manufacturing method for the rocker arm which decreases the disadvantages that high chromium cast iron have and the rocker arm material best suited for this method are described.