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Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3 Hardness Testing Methods .................................................................................................... 4 Rockwell Hardness Test ......................................................................................................... 4 Brinell Hardness Test.............................................................................................................. 5 Vickers Hardness Test ............................................................................................................ 6 Observations: ............................................................................................................................. 7 Data and Results ....................................................................................................................... 8 Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 11 Conclusion and Recommendation ................................................................................... 12
Introduction
Hardness is the property of a material that enables it to resist plastic deformation, usually by penetration. However, the term hardness may also refer to resistance to bending, scratching, abrasion or cutting. Hardness is not an intrinsic material property dictated by precise definitions in terms of fundamental units of mass, length and time. A hardness property value is the result of a defined measurement procedure. Hardness of materials has probably long been assessed by resistance to scratching or cutting. An example would be material B scratches material C, but not material A. Alternatively, material A scratches material B slightly and scratches material C heavily. Relative hardness of minerals can be assessed by reference to the Mohs Scale that ranks the ability of materials to resist scratching by another material. Similar methods of relative hardness assessment are still commonly used today. An example is the file test where a file tempered to a desired hardness is rubbed on the test material surface. If the file slides without biting or marking the surface, the test material would be considered harder than the file. If the file bites or marks the surface, the test material would be considered softer than the file. The usual method to achieve a hardness value is to measure the depth or area of an indentation left by an indenter of a specific shape, with a specific force applied for a specific time. There are three principal standard test methods for expressing the relationship between hardness and the size of the impression, these being Brinell, Vickers, and Rockwell. For practical and calibration reasons, each of these methods is divided into a range of scales, defined by a combination of applied load and indenter geometry.
HR = E - e
Figure 1
Figure 2
Where, BHN= the Brinell hardness number F= the imposed load in Kg D= the diameter of the spherical indenter in mm d = diameter of the resulting indenter impression in mm
Figure 3
F= Load in kgf d = Arithmetic mean of the two diagonals, d1 and d2 in mm HV = Vickers hardness
Observations:
The equipment, which was used in this experiment, was found out very sensitive to vibration. Sensitivity of this equipment gives it a valid reason of being precise because its on such a small scale, which reaches to a microscopic scale. The specimen has to place under microscope in order to observe its surface. The indent made by this equipment is not visible by the naked eye therefore a microscope was build within the equipment. The shape of the indent into material looked like a pyramid. The color and grains of each testing sample were varied. For instance, the steel sample had tight close together grains. Aluminum on the other hand had much softer, loosen grains wasnt as packed together as steel. The computer software calculated the hardness value based on the two diameters of the pyramid deformation shape.
Vickers Hardness Test Applied load (N) 0.981 Time 5 Material 1 Steel Material 2 Aluminum Material 3 Brass
The following table shows the distances of the diameters of pyramid shape deformation in Steel. This value was used by computer software to determine the hardness value. The pyramid deformation shape is shown in the figure 4 and 5.
Table 2
Steel Sample 2nd test 3rd test 44.32 44.53 45.34 46.4 92.3 89.7
The following table shows the distances of the diameters of pyramid shape deformation in Aluminum. This value was used by computer software to determine the hardness value. The pyramid deformation shape is shown in the figure 6.
Table 3
Aluminum Sample 2nd test 3rd test 64.9 65.63 66.52 64.22 72.8 72.4
The following table shows the distances of the diameters of pyramid shape deformation in Brass. This value was used by computer software to determine the hardness value. The pyramid deformation shape is shown in the figure 7.
Table 4
Brass Sample 2nd test 3rd test 55.98 54.91 51.75 50.91 67.4 66.2
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Discussion
The result of Vickers Harness test determines that Steel is the strongest material in all three tested materials with the average value of 93. The hardness value of Aluminum was determined 72.20 and finally Brass is the weakest material with the average value of 66.60. The indention made on each specimen was not shaped as a perfect diamond and this is likely due to the poor surface finish of each material. Each material was tested three times and the magnitude of hardness and the distances were obtained and recorded. The average value and the standard deviation were calculated based on the values were obtained from each trial. The parameters calculated by the machine included the length of each diagonal and the Vickers Hardness (HV) number. In order to compare the results obtained from the experiment, results were obtained for Steel, Aluminum and Brass.
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