Inspection And Testing of Materials

Lab Report - 3

Total Obtained
Marks Marks
10
Submitted by: Group 7

Class: MAT-13B

Registration No Name
200301010 Hafsa Farooq
200301060 Arooj Javed
200301066 Maham Saif
Date:08-12-2022
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

OBJECTIVE: 2

INTRODUCTION: 2

Hardness Testing: 3

TECHNIQUES IN LITERATURE: 3

Scratch Hardness: 3

Static Indentation Hardness: 3

Dynamic Hardness: 4

General Comparison: 4

HEAT TREATMENT AND MICROSTRUCTURAL CHANGES: 5

Annealing: 6

Normalizing: 6

Quenching: 6

Comparative Hardness: 8

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS: 8

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OBJECTIVES:
Hardness testing is performed on a material to:

● Test to check material

● Test hardenability

● Test to confirm process

● Can be used to predict Tensile strength

INTRODUCTION:
Hardness is defined as resistance of a material to indentation. It indicates how immune
a solid matter is to various kinds of permanent shape change. Hardness depends on
some of the characteristics of microstructure like grain size for example if a material
sample has coarse grain structure its hardness will be less than the sample of same
material but with fine grains. This is due to the phenomenon of grain boundaries. The
finer the grain structure the more grain boundaries are present, the higher the hardness
will be.

Hardness also relates to other mechanical properties, for example if a material has high
hardness it will have low elasticity as well as ductility which indicates its relative
brittleness. The yield strength is the amount of stress a material can withhold with
minimum plastic strain while hardness is resistance to plastic deformation. Therefore
when the hardness is increased the yield strength of material also increases. Similarly
UTM, ultimate tensile strength, increases as well. These two properties can be
approximately correlated in metals. High hardness of a material can be a useful as well
as threatening property depending upon the conditions the application is being used in
as a hard material does not usually have a good impact strength.

Hardness Testing:

To know hardness a test is conducted which measures the surface resistance to

indentation. There are several tests to measure hardness. The most commonly used
hardness tests are defined by the shape or type of indent, the size, and the amount of
load applied. The main hardness test methods are Brinell, Rockwell, Vickers, Mohs,
Shore and Knoop each one having a dedicated test machine with its own unique
hardness scales.

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When selecting a hardness test method, important considerations include:

● The type of material to be hardness tested

● The size of the part

● The required accuracy of the result

● The approximate hardness of the material

TECHNIQUES IN LITERATURE:
There are different techniques that have been used for hardness testing and are still
used. These measurements fall into three main categories:

Scratch Hardness:

Scratch hardness is the oldest form of hardness measurement and was probably first
developed by mineralogists. It depends on the ability of one solid to scratch on the other
solid. This method was first put on a semi-quantitative basis by Mohs (1822), who
selected ten minerals as standards beginning with talc( scratch hardness 1) and ending
with diamond(scratch hardness 10). This scale has been widely used by mineralogists
and lapidaries. This technique however is not suitable for metals as Mohs scale
intervals are not well spaced in higher range of hardness and most hard metals have

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Mohs hardness range from 4 to 8. Furthermore the values mostly would depend on the
experimental procedure, in particular on orientation of scratching edge.

Another type of scratch hardness test is a light logical development of Mohs scale
consisting of drawing diamond stylus, under a defined load, across surface to be
examined. The hardness is determined by width or depth of scratch; the harder the
material the smaller the scratch. This method has some value as a means of measuring
the variation in hardness across a grain boundary. In general however scratch
sclerometer is difficult to operate. In addition the scratching process is a complicated
function of elastic, plastic and frictional properties on the surface so that the method
does not give a theoretical analysis.

Static Indentation Hardness:

The method widely used in determining the hardness of metals are static indentation
methods. These methods involve formation of a permanent indent on metal surface to
be examined, the hardness being determined by load and size of indent formed.

The methods mostly used in labs and research are indentation methods like Rockwell,
Brinell, Vicker test which are discussed and performed in this lab report as well. In the
Brinell test(Brinell 1900; Meyer 1908) the indenter consists of a hard steel ball or it could
be coated with tungsten carbide for hard metals.Another shape of indenter is used in
Luckwid(1908) and Vickers(Smith and Sandland, 1925) hardness test is conical or
pyramid shape respectively. These indenters are now made of diamond. The hardness
observed with these indenters were different from the spherical ones.

Dynamic Hardness:

Another type of hardness test that involves the dynamic deformation or indentation of
metal specimens. In most direct methods an indenter is dropped on a metal surface and
hardness is expressed in terms of energy of impact and size of indentation (Martel
1895). In shore rebound scleroscope (Shore 1918) the hardness is measured in terms
of height of rebound of indenter. The dynamic hardness may be expressed
quantitatively in terms of plastic and elastic properties of the metal. Another method
which is a dynamic hardness testing method is Leeb test, which is a very recent and
innovative rebound test discussed in this lab report as well.

General Comparison:

● The scratch hardness testing is not a suitable technique for metals as the Mohs
scale intervals are not wide enough to specifically measure or identify the
hardness of metals specifically.

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 ● Static indentation techniques are widely used for metals and are more accurate.
In this technique the hardness is measured using the load applied and the
diameter of the indent formed.

● In dynamic hardness tests, the force applied at a faster rate hence subjecting
metal to impact load. In this method the hardness is measured in terms of height
of the rebound of the indenter.

HEAT TREATMENT AND MICROSTRUCTURAL CHANGES:

Heat treatment affects the microstructure of metals and alloys which then affects the
hardness. Microstructure includes defects, grain size, grain boundaries, impurities and
distortion inside the material on a microscopic level. A material when cold worked has
stresses induced in it which causes the microstructure to be distorted and having more
defects which induces the hardness in materials. Heat treatment is the process of
heating metal without letting it reach its molten, or melting, stage, and then cooling the
metal in a controlled way to get a specific microstructure for the desired mechanical
properties. Heat treatment affects all the mechanical properties but in this lab report we
will discuss the hardness of materials. There are three stages of heat treatment:

● Heat the metal slowly to ensure that the metal maintains a uniform temperature
● Soak, or hold, the metal at a specific temperature for an allotted period of time
● Cool the metal to room temperature

Fig: Schematics of heat treatment.

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The properties depend on the cooling method and cooling rate after the heating. The
faster the cooling rate is the more distorted structure metal gets and therefore the higher
hardness is.

Annealing:

Annealing is a heat treatment in which the metal is heated to a temperature above its
recrystallization temperature, kept at that temperature for some time for homogenization
of temperature followed by very slow cooling to develop equilibrium structure in the
metal or an alloy. The cooling is done in the furnace itself giving the grains enough time
to grow and get in their stable positions removing the microstructural defects and
stresses, reducing the hardness.

Normalizing:

It is a heat treatment in which material is heated to an elevated temperature, kept at that

temperature in order to give time for recrystallization and then allowed to cool back to
room temperature by exposing it to room temperature air after it is heated. It is
subjected to air cooling which is slightly faster than the furnace cooling hence its
structure contains finer grains as compared to annealing. But still enough time for grains
to grow, stabilize and reduce stress decreasing the hardness. It makes material more
machinable and less brittle.

Quenching:

In quenching material is cooled at a very fast rate after heating to recrystallization

temperature. Metal is soaked in water,brine or oil to rapidly cool, not given enough time
to reach a stable equilibrium phase and hence undergoing a diffusionless
transformation. This transformation forms a distorted structure with a lot of stress
induced and hence increases its hardness. Quenching gives us a very strong and hard
material for the commercial applications.

Comparative hardness:
Different heat treatments give different microstructures to metal or alloy which alter their
mechanical properties in different ways. In the lab for heat treatment and phase
transformation we performed heat treatments on mild steel samples and measured their
hardness.

Original Hardness Hardness after Hardness After Hardness After

Annealing Normalizing Quenching

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Indent 1 109 67.8 77.2 197

Indent 2 108 69.6 75.1 192

Indent 3 110 68.3 77.9 200

Average 109 68.5 76.3 204.6

Table 1: Hardness values after different Heat treatments

Fig 5: Comparative graph of hardness after different heat treatments.