Material and Design

VICKERS HARDNESS TEST

REPORT

HARDNESS:

Hardness is defined as the resistance offered by the body (test specimen) to resist the applied load in
order to deformation. It is the resistance of a body to another body. It is a quality of a material which
can be greatly influenced by alloying constituents (i.e., the percentage of carbon).

Types of hardness test: 1) Rockwell hardness test

2) Brinell hardness test

3) Vickers harness test

VICKERS HARDNESS TEST:

This is the most accurate and most widely used hardness test. Virtually any test load can be
selected. Similar to brinell hardness test.

The hardness of a material is given by the ratio of the test load to the surface of the square
indentation made by a diamond pyramid indenter with a 136 deg angle between opposite faces.

WORK PIECE USED: Aluminium

FROM THE EXPERIMENT:

At some angle say 0 deg Y1 = 43 (i.e. 3 short lines

N1 = 3 and 2 long lines)

Applied load = 2kg

D1 = a*N1 + b*Y1

D1 = 0.05*3 + 0.0005*43

D1 = 0.1715mm

At 90 deg (rotation from 0 to 90 of microscope) Y2 = 47

N2 = 3

D2 = a*N2 + b*Y2

D2 = 0.05*3 + 0.0005*47

D2 = 0.1735mm
Mean diagonal (D) = D1 + D2 / 2

D = (0.1715 + 0.1735) / 2

D = 0.1725mm

FORMULA USED:

H.V = 0.189*F / D2

= 0.189*2*9.81 / (0.1725)2

H.V = 124.491

PRECAUTIONS:

1. The height of the microscope is adjusted without hitting the work piece with indenter.
2. The distance between the microscope and the top surface of the workpiece should be
less than 5mm for clear image.
3. Do not apply any load by hand.

CONCLUSION:

With the help of the Vickers hardness test we can find the hardness value which in the
experiment is 124.491HV. Vickers test is less sensitive to surface conditions and more sensitive to
measurement errors. We can conclude that Vickers test is best for small elongated areas and for hard
brittle materials as it has complete hardening range.