What kinds of Brinell hardness indenter shapes are out there?
A friend of mine has an old brinell Hardness tester that he asked me to help him sell. I wanted to test it to see how accurate it still functions, and the indenter that he has is a cone that's been ground in half (along the axis). I don't know much about hardness testing, but I thought that it need to be a ball, not half of one. Is there some hardness test I'm unaware of that uses half a ball?
Posted Jan 10, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC
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I just took material science and according to my textbook and a quick google, the Brinell test uses a 10mm sphere of steel or tungsten carbide.
Vicker's uses a Diamond pyramid
Knoop uses a diamond pyramid, just a different shape (Edit: like a rhombus, not square)
Rockwell uses a diamond cone or 1/8" or 1/16" steel sphere, depending on what test.
What you saying supports what I'm thinking, so I have no idea what this indenter is for. Only think I can think of is someone ground it down to get a look at the cross section.
Is it possible the indentor chipped? If it is diamond it will cleave into flat surfaces.