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Ductile cast irons (DCI) mechanical properties are strongly influenced both by the matrix and by
the graphite elements morphological peculiarities. These elements cannot be merely considered as “microvoids
embedded in a metal matrix”, but their presence implies a modification of the damaging micromechanisms,
depending on the metal matrix microstructure. In this work, a ferritic DCI has been considered. Tensile tests
have been performed on notched tensile specimen: quantitative image analysis approach has been applied in
order to analyze the possibility to consider the graphite nodules as indicators of the damaging level evolution.