Effects of Steel and Tungsten Carbide Ball Indenters on Rockwell Hardness Measurements

Published

March 1, 2006

Author(s)

Li Ma, Samuel R. Low III, J L. Fink

Abstract

The Rockwell hardness (HR) test is a valuable and widely used indentation hardness test for evaluating mechanical properties of metallic materials. For the Rockwell scales that use a ball indenter, either a steel or tungsten carbide (WC) ball indenter is permitted to be used in the current standards of ASTM International and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). However, significant differences occur in Rockwell hardness tests depending on whether the ball indenter that is used is made of steel or WC. In this paper, finite element analysis (FEA) is used to simulate the HR indentaiton process using steel and WC ball indenters on the same test materails under the same testing conditions. The effects of four different sizes of steel and WC ball indenters on different Rockwell hardness scales are studied and compared with the experimental tests. This study provides important approximations of differences between the performance of steel and WC Rockwell hardness indenters.

Citation

Journal of Testing and Evaluation

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

ball indenter, finite element analysis, rockwell hardness test

Citation

Ma, L. , Low, S. and Fink, J. (2006), Effects of Steel and Tungsten Carbide Ball Indenters on Rockwell Hardness Measurements, Journal of Testing and Evaluation (Accessed June 10, 2023)