Can thermal shock crack cast iron?

Yes if genuine cast iron.

No it does not take extreme conditions. A cast iron frypan into cold water is all it takes.

Hell, yes!

That is the reason for the admonition not to add water to an overheated engine unless it is running. You can most definitely crack cast iron by immersion in water. In fact, you can crack it by simply heating it too fast. I toasted a forge pan that way.

V

snipped-for-privacy@visi.com () wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

Yes, you can break most things with heat/cold.....Delta T (change in temperature) What actually goes on is, the change in temperature pulls the material apart. If the delta T is enough, as one section/layer/area cools, it shrinks, when this shrinkage pull becomes greater than the strength of the material itself, it pulls apart. If I remember my physics correctly.

Did that to a cast iron griddle once when I was young and trying to cook something. Was really hot and cracked clean across--managed to set the contents on fire and tossed it in the sink to put it out. My mother was _not_ amused.

Another lesson--if you run water into hot steel or aluminum pan sometimes the bottom will develop a curvature and the pan won't sit flat anymore.

Öx?UR=sÛ0Ýù+0¹?#]?'?»\¯C²tÈЦ ?6È$hÕK{A¹ö]GOï?X?èÓ{ß#¦#­?æ$J;÷^V?6¾²è@ "å,üðz¸HTfT[VA²EË¸?0!C??4???Ûðrg5J?ª?0?¡£3E???tF-?¹[p?eþb A¡¨¶º??¨Y8? ÂÄîL¬ ý2?1JL Þ,d£6K{3lk£Ì0?òÍ*çEÐEê £*qGô?çZ?d??Lï] !?!BÈàòGêÖPEÉ?
xcg?.k?2Ð,?LOf¦?^?§5X¸HØe°>÷%YjÓ^ûÚ3BO³»fË?.do¾?°æ?ÝýQ?\õY®õ[°xª?£?kSI??¬?Úy¢\¢¢­#úcÅäQìØ.àFl¤s?{Ó,©º©ÿ?i+ùé?ìàT??L¿'òJ7µ?1L?ýýï2>>*ÁÎ ª?m·ÛæqÛl¿6??öÏA?/µýáÒ¦Oç?û?¯þ#

Without chasing the link, I'm gonna hazard a guess that you ended up with a two-piece pan (and although you say "unexpected", I coulda told ya that without trashing the cookware - It's simple physics in action.)

I shudder to think what happens to one of those "sandwich" pans that has an aluminum core between two steel surfaces.

So what happened? I cannot tell from the picture.

Lodge (maker of cast iron cookware) warms about heating or cooling their stuff too fast as it may crack. I heat my griddle slowly as it's fairly large and can take a while to heat up at the edges.

That dimple just above the Ecko is convex in that perspective, projecting about 1/2" from the normal plane. It recovered with a few well placed blows (with the interior braced on a post), but it was kind of funny how it popped out like that (at least to me).

Jon