Cast iron alloys with low production cost and quite good mechanical properties are widely used in the automotive industry. To study the mechanical behavior of a typical ductile cast iron (GJS-450) with nodular graphite, uni-axial quasi-static and dynamic tensile tests at strain rates of 10− 4, 1, 10, 100, and 250 s− 1 were carried out. In order to investigate the effects of stress state, specimens with various geometries were used in the experiments. Stress–strain curves and fracture strains of the GJS-450 alloy in the strain-rate range of 10− 4 to 250 s− 1 were obtained. A strain rate-dependent plastic flow law based on the Voce model is proposed to describe the mechanical behavior in the corresponding strain-rate range. The deformation behavior at various strain rates is observed and analyzed through simulations with the proposed strain rate-dependent constitutive model. The available damage model from Bai and Wierzbicki is extended to take the strain rate into account and calibrated based on the analysis of local fracture strains. The validity of the proposed constitutive model including the damage model was verified by the corresponding experimental results. The results show that the strain rate has obviously nonlinear effects on the yield stress and fracture strain of GJS-450 alloys. The predictions with the proposed constitutive model and damage models at various strain rates agree well with the experimental results, which illustrates that the rate-dependent flow rule and damage models can be used to describe the mechanical behavior of cast iron alloys at elevated strain rates.