Lab Report

Material Technology and Testing

ILSS and 3-point Bending test

Name: NCS Rahul

ID no: 2022H1410112H
Lab date: 1st Oct 2022
Report Submission date:
08 Oct 2022

Birla Institute of technology Pilani,

Hyderabad campus, Hyderabad Telangana
 Hardness Test
The hardness of the material is resistant to local permanent deformation,scratch or
indentation. So, it is important parameter in engineering application. Hardness test gives us
means to measure the hardness of the material. Hardness is key element in quality control
aspects and for research and development work. There are several methods for measuring
hardness. Mainly they are
1). Brinell Hardness
Test 2). Vickers Hardness
Test 3). Rockwell
Hardness Test

1). Brinell
Hardness test
Brinell test is the used test to measure the hardness. In Brinell hardness testing, the
hardness of the material is determined by measuring permanent size of the indentation caused
by the indenter. It consists of applying constant load between 150-3000Kgf for a specified
time (10 to 30 Sec). The indenter used is hardened steel ball. The diameter of the ball may
vary from 2.5mm to 30mm.

The Brinell hardness is measured as the ratio of the load to the area of the indentation
When the force is applied on the specimen, the spherical ball creates an indentation. The
diameter(d) of the indentation is measured using microscope. Then using formula, the Brinell
hardness Number is calculated.
The Brinell Hardness number is specified as XXX HBYYD2
XXX indicates force applied
YY Type of material (5 for Aluminium,10 for copper alloys, 30 for steels)
For Example: The Brinell hardness number for steel is specified as 250 HB30D2.
The advantages of Brinell Hardness test that it can be used for wide range of material from
softer to harder material. The limitation of this test is that it requires indenter which is harder
than the specimen and it requires flat specimen.

2). Vickers Hardness Test

Vickers Hardness test is developed as an alternative to Brinell Hardness test. It follows
the principle of Brinell hardness test. The Vickers hardness test is easier. The indenter is made
up of Diamond and in the form of square based pyramid.
The load apply varies from 1 to 100gf. The load is fully applied for 10-15 sec and then
the two diagonals left in the indentation are measured using microscope.

The Vickers Hardness test is calculated using formula

Where d is average of the two diagonals

The Vickers Hardness test is represented like 680 HV30
680 Hardness Value HV  Hardness Vickers 30 test load 30kg
3) Rockwell Hardness Test
The main difference between Rockwell and other two hardness test is that it measures
the depth of the indentation caused by indenter whereas in other two surface diameter and
diagonal length are measured. It is simple and hardness is obtained directly from the machine
The 1200 diamond cone with slightly round edge is used as indenter.

Rockwell hardness test should specify the test load and type of scale under which the test was
made. The various load and scales are mentioned below.
Rockwell Scale Indenter Pmajor(kg)
(X)
A Brale 60
(Diamond)
B 1/16” ball 400
C Brale 150
(Diamond)
D Brale 100
(Diamond)
E 1/8” ball 100
R 1/8” ball 60
M 1/4” ball 100
R 1/2” ball 60

For example, 64 HRC means the hardness number is 64 as determined on a Rockwell C scale
The formula used to calculate Rockwell Hardness is
 Bending Test

1). Introduction:
Bending test is used to study the behaviour of the material when subjected to simple
beam loading. It is commonly performed the materials like polymers, wood, and composites.
Bending test is also called as flexure test or transverse testing. Similarly, like tensile test,
bending test is also carried on Universal Testing Machine (UTM). In this test, specimen is
placed between two anvils which are separated by a certain distance and load is applied on the
midspan of the specimen.

In Bending there are two

kinds of test 1).3 -Point Bending test
2). 4-Point Bending test

3 – Point Bending 4 – Point Bending

Bending test is conducted because the tensile and compression will not provide all the
necessary information. As the specimens is subjected to complex loading condition like
tensile,compression, shear. For this reason the bending test is conducted to understand the
behaviour of the specimen on the complex realisitic load. Generally materials which are used
to support loads are subjected to bending test.This test is limited to 3-Point Bending test only.
 The stress can be found out using the “Bending Equation.”

2) Test requirements and Test Parameters

The bending test is carried out universal Testing Machine (UTM) using three point bending
fixture. For this test the specimen is made of Ceramic material. The cross section of the
specimen is circular. The dimension of the specimen is prepared according to the ASTM
standard.

Parameters

The specimen is placed in the anvils which are at distance 70mm from the point of
application of the load. The loading is done up to 100% travel of the point of load in load
applying direction (90 degrees to the axis passing through length of the specimen) i.e,
thickness (average diameter) of the specimen. The speed of the loading is 1mm/min.

Requirements

 Universal testing machine

 3 point Bending Fixture
 Vernier calliper
 1 Specimen of Ceramic material
 Dimension of the specimen: Outer diameter(Do)=5.39 mm
inner diameter (Di)=4.56 mm
Length (L)=131.77 mm

3). Experimental Result

Specimen %Elongation at Maximum Young’s

maximum force Force Modulus
1 Ceramic 0164 53.400 9.267 MPa
N
4). Discussion and Analysis
The reason for being called as 3-point bending test is because we perform the bending
at 3-points of the load. In this bending test we calculate 2 essential parameters. They are
bending strength and flexural rigidity (G).

In Bending, the maximum stress at outermost fibre is called Bending strength. The
bending test produces tensile stress at the convex side and compressive stress in concave side
of the specimen. To make sure the failure occurs from tensile or compressive, the shear stress
must be minimized. This is done by controlling the span to depth ratio.

There are some factors which affect the parameters of this bending test they are, the
radius of curvature of the specimen after bent and type of Notch used for bending the
specimen. That is U-notch or V-notch. We tend to use U-notch in this test because providing
nose radius to the notch can save from the stress concentration at the supports (or) cracks
produced at the supports.

For known material of definite size, we can calculate it’s dimensions and area of cross
section. But for the unknown material of undefined size, we calculate the area of that
specimen by knowing the density and the mass of that sample.

As per the ASTM standards, the span length is kept between the supports such that the
ratio of the required span length to that of the diameter of the specimen is 1:16, which is not
possible with our material because our specimen length much larger than it’s diameter. Hence,
we follow some steps of thumb rule, they are, Mark overall length and take ¾ of the length
under our span and the remaining length of the specimen is not under our span.

Fibre Under
Compression
P

Fibre Under
Tension

Values such as maximum extension, maximum force are recorded just like tensile test using
load cell and extension. The strain and stress are calculated differently because flexure
components are involved. The results are plotted as load vs Deformation curve because the
behaviour of the material changes with the dimension of the specimen.
5) Salient points

Ceramic Spcimen
60

50

40
Standard force [N]

30

20

10

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Deformation [%]

Graph of force (F) vs % deformation of 3-point bending test for Ceramic Material

The graph is drawn between force and the % deformation. The bending strength is calculated at
the maximum load of the specimen where it breaks by dividing it with area of cross section.
The material used in the test is ceramic which is brittle and hard material. Hence we get a linear
variation in the graph of force vs deformation. That is stress vs strain.

The crack produced near the sample should be in the perpendicular direction to the longitudinal
axis. If not, then the sample would not placed properly or centered correctly. If the thickness of
the sample (diameter in this case) is increased, the bending becomes unsignificant, that is,
bending strength becomes larger.

The graph obtained from the test is compared with the other standards of test materials, that is,
ISO 178 for plastics which has 3 curves a, b and c. For metals we have ISO 7438 standards. From
comparing it with ISO 178 ,we conclude that the above graph is of type b that is it gives a
maximum and then breaks before the conventional deflection of the specimen.
References

1) ASTM D790 for 3-point flexural testing

2) ISO 178 for plastics
3) ISO 7438 for Metals