TITLE

Hardness test and Charpy impact test.

OBJECTIVE
1. To determine and thus compare the hardness degree or values of the mild steel, carbon steel, high quality carbon steel and ASSAB steel through three types of hardness tests which are the Vickers Hardness Test, Rockwell Hardness Test and Brinell Hardness Test. 2. To determine the amount of energy absorbed by mild steel and carbon steel during the Charpy Impact Test and thus study and analysis their own properties based on the test results.

APPARATUS
1. Mild Steel 2. Medium Carbon Steel 3. ASSAB Steel 4. Vickers Hardness Tester 5. Rockwell Hardness Tester 6. Brinell Hardness Tester 7. Charpy V-notch Testing Machine

INTRODUCTION
Hardness is a measure of a materials resistance to localized plastic deformation (e.g., a small dent or scratch). Hardness testing involves a small indenter being forced into the surface of the material being tested under controlled conditions of load and rate of application. The depth or size of the resulting indentation is measured, which in turn is related to a hardness number; the softer the material, the larger and deeper the indentation, and the lower the hardness index number. Measured hardness are only relative (rather than absolute) thus care must be taken when comparing values determined by different techniques. The test used to determine the hardness of materials in this experiment is the three of the most commonly used tests, Vickers Hardness Test Rockwell Hardness Test and Brinell Hardness Test. Toughness is a measure of the amount of energy a material can absorb before fracturing or breaking. It becomes of engineering importance when the ability of a material to withstand an impact load without fracturing is considered. Impact test conditions were chosen to represent those most severe relative to the potential for fracture, namely, deformation at a relatively low temperature, a high strain rate and a triaxial stress state. One of the standardized tests that is commonly used to measure Impact Energy is called Charpy test. The Charpy V-notch technique is most commonly used in most of the research. For this test, a V-notch is machined into a bar specimen with a square cross section. The load is applied as an impact blow from a weighted pendulum hammer that is released from a cocked position at a fixed height "h". The specimen is positioned at the base as shown. Upon release, a knife edge mounted on the pendulum strikes and fractures the specimen at the notch, which 1

acts as a point of stress concentration for the high velocity impact blow. The pendulum continues its swing, rising to a maximum height "h", which is lower than "h". Based on the difference between h and h, the energy absorption of the specimen is computed.

The above references are as below: 1. Street, R.L., Watters, G.Z., Vennard, J.K., (1996) Elementary Fluid Mechanics, New York ,7th edition, John Wiley & Sons. 2. Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala, (2006) Fluid mechanics Fundamental and Application, New York, 1st edition in S.I. units, Mc Graw Hill,

PROCEDURES
a) Vickers Hardness Test 1) There are two kinds of specimens are being tested, which are the mild steel and medium carbon steel. Firstly, the sample of the specimen was placed carefully on the Vickers hardness tester platform to get a clear image of specimen on the computer screen by a build-in camera. 2) After that, make sure that the indenter of the machine applies directly onto the specimen. 3) The start button was pressed and the machine will function automatically by applying 10kgf load of force onto the specimen surface. 4) After the machine stopped, adjust the scale of the screen on the hole made on the surface of the specimen. Next, the computer will automatically define the d1 and d2. Finally, the computer will automatically give the VHN value for both the specimens.

b) Rockwell Hardness Test 1) There will be two kinds of specimens are being used, that is the ASSAB steel and medium carbon steel. Place the sample of the specimen onto the platform of the machine. 2) Scale C was being used in the experiment because we are testing on steel materials. 3) The start button on the Rockwell hardness tester was pressed and the machine will automatically press the indenter with 150 kgf loads onto the surface of the specimen. 4) The value of HRC can be determined from the computer screen directly for both the specimens.

c) Brinell Hardness Test 1) There will be two kinds of specimens are being used in this test which is the mild steel and medium carbon steel. 2

2) The Brinell hardness tester was set to press the large steel ball with diameter 10 mm on the specimen with the load of 1000 kgf. 3) Wait for 15 second and unload the weight by releasing the pump valve. The curved surface area of the indentation was viewed by a special microscope with scale on the screen. 4) The diameter of the segment of sphere was measured with the scale and the reading was taken. 5) The values of BHN for both the specimens are then obtained from the Brinell hardness table according to the readings.

d) Charpy Impact Test 1) Mild steel and medium carbon steel are being tested in this test. 2) The specimens are placed and fixed in the Charpy testing machine. The machine is switched on. 3) The heavy pendulum with heavy load is then released and strikes the specimen on its downward swing. 4) The energy absorbed by the fracture can be determined form the reading scale on the machine and the readings are recorded.

ABSTRACT
In the engineering field, hardness can be defined commonly as the resistance of a material towards indentation by any external forces applied. Vickers Hardness Test, Rockwell Hardness Test and Brinell Hardness Test are three of the generally used tests to measure the hardness of a material. These three tests is conducted on the material by causing an indentation by pushing a hard round ball or point against the sample material with a known force. The value of size and depth or the indentation caused by the test will be used to obtained the hardness of the sample material. The level of the hardness of the ASSAB steel, mild steel and carbon steel are calculated and compared in this experiment. When a sudden and strong force is applied on the surface of a material, it will result in a high strain rate causing the material to show its brittleness properties. Charpy hardness test is used to measure the brittleness of carbon steel and mild steel by analysing the total energy absorbed by these specimens during impact. Theoretically, the more the energy absorbed by a material during impact indicates that its brittleness is lower. From this test, the capability of carbon steel and mild steel to withstand an impact are calculated and then compared.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Reading 1 2 3 Average

VHN/ HV value 225.00 263.00 183.00 223.67

Table 2: Reading for mild steel.

b) Rockwell Hardness Test Table 3: Reading for ASSAB steel.

Reading 1 2 3 Average

HRC/HV value 56.80 57.30 58.10 57.40

Table 4: Reading for high quality carbon steel.

c) Brinell Hardness Test Table 5: Reading for carbon steel.

Table 6: Reading for mild steel.

d) Charpy Impact Test Table 7: Reading for the carbon steel and mild steel.
Type of material used Energy absorbed (J) Carbon steel 32 Mild steel 299

Carbon steel:

The carbon steel is observed to be fractured and torn into two pieces after it has been subjected to Charpy impact test and there is no sign of plastic deformation is observed.
Mild Steel:

Unlike carbon steel, the mild steel is bended or deformed plastically and it did not fracture or broken when undergo Charpy impact test.

Discussion 1) From the Vickers Hardness Test, it is determined that carbon steel has VHN of 223.67 which is significantly greater than the VHN of the mild steel which is just 156.33. Thus, the hardness of carbon steel is proven to be greater than the mild steel. 2) Through Rockwell Hardness Test, the ASSAB steel has HRC value of 57.4 which is greater than the HRC of the high quality carbon steel with the value of 26.13. So, the hardness of ASSAB steel is greater than the high quality carbon steel. 3) Similar to the results of Brinell Hardness Test, the carbon steel has HB of 163.67HV which greater than the HB value of the mild steel which is 107.33HV. Therefore, the hardness level of carbon steel is greater than mild steel. 4) It is proven that the composition of carbon in steel is one of the fundamental factors that influence the hardness of the steel. This is because the carbon atoms added into carbon steel structure will increase the resistance for the atoms inside the structure to dislocate or slide through each other when acted upon external forces. 5) However, from through Charpy impact test, the total energy absorbed by mild steel is 299J which is greater than the total energy absorbed by the carbon steel with the value of 32J. It is also observed that after the test, the mild steel specimen undergoes more plastic deformation 6

than carbon steel. Therefore it can be concluded that the carbon steel specimen undergo a slight plastics deformation before fractured. 6) From the result mentioned above, it is proven that ductility of the mild steel greater than the carbon steel itself. And thus, the brittleness of the carbon steel is greater than mild steel. In conclusion, the mild steel has higher impact of toughness than the carbon steel.

CONCLUSION In conclusion, the hardness of carbon steel is greater than the mild steel while the hardness of the ASSAB steel is greater than the high quality carbon steel. However, the brittleness of carbon steel is greater than the mild steel and the ductility of mild steel is greater than carbon steel when they are subjected to impact.

REFERENCES

1)

William F. Smith, Principles of Materials science and Engineering, 3rd edition Mc Graw Hill, 1986 Callister, W.D, Material Science And Engineering An Introduction , 7th edition,Utah: John Wiley and Sons,2006

2)