Hardness Testing

Hardness Testing

The application of hardness testing enables you to evaluate a material’s properties, such as strength, ductility and wear resistance, and so helps you determine whether a material or material treatment is suitable for the purpose you require.

There are numerous techniques to measure hardness and each of these tests can identify varying hardness values for a single material under testing. Hence, hardness test as a method can be dependent and each test’s outcome needs to be labeled to determine the kind of hardness test used.

Hardness tests are extensively used to characterize a certain material and to identify if it is appropriate for its intended purpose. All hardness tests involve the utilization of a particularly shaped indenter that is harder than the material under testing. The indenter is pressed onto the test surface with the use of a certain amount of force. The size of the depth of the indent is measured in order to determine the hardness value.