LAB:10

TO DETER MINE VICKER’S HARDNESS NUMBER OF A SPECIMEN.

OBJECTIVE:
To check the hardness of different specimens.

INTRODUCTION:
WHAT IS HARDNESS?
DEFINITION:
Hardness is a resistance to deformation.(for people who are concerned with mechanics of materials,
hardness is more likely to mean the resistance to indentation).

There are three general types of hardness measurements

1)Scratch hardness
 The ability of material to scratch on one another
 Important to mineralogists, using Mohs’scale 1= talc, 10 = diamond
 Not suited for metal annealed copper = 3, martensite = 7

2)Indentation hardness
 Major important engineering interest for metals.
 Different types : Brinell, Meyer, Vickers, Rockwellhardness tests.

3)Rebound or dynamic hardness

•The indentoris dropped onto the metal surface and thehardness is expressed as the energy of
impact.

Hardness tests can be used for many engineering applications toachievethe basic requirement
of mechanical property

.•For examples

1. surface treatments where surface hardness has been much improved.

2. Powder metallurgy
3. Fabricated parts: forgings, rolled plates, extrusions, machined parts.

VICKER’S HARDNESS:
 Vickers hardness test uses a square-base diamond pyramid as the indenter with the included
anglebetween opposite faces of the pyramid of 136 Degree.
.•The Vickers hardness number(VHN) is defined as the load dividedby the surface area of the
indentation.

 Vicker’s hardness test uses the loads ranging from 1 to 120 kgf, applied for between 10 to 15
seconds.
 Provide a fairly wide acceptance for research work because it provide a continues scale of
hardness , for a given load.
 VHN= 5 to 1,500 can be obtained from the same load level(easy for comparision)

IMPRESSION BY VICKER’S TEST:

1. A PERFECT SQUARE INDENTATION:
Made with a perfect diamond pyramid shape indenter would be a square.

2. THE PINCUSION INDENTATION:

Is the result of sinking in of the metal around the flat faces of pyramid. This gives an overestimate of
the diagonal length (observed in annealed metal).

3. THE BARREL SHAPED INDENTATION:

It is found in clod work metals , resulting from ridging or piling up of the metal around the faces of
the indenter. Produce a low value of contact area.
VALUE:

CONCLUSION:
In this lab we learn about vicker’s hardness test and about the machine used for test.

COMMENTS:
In this we learn so many things from our respected teacher.