You are here

Brinell testing

Testing method for materials in which a carbide ball is pressed down against the surface and creates an indentation which is measured to estimate the material’s Brinell hardness.

Beskrivning
Illustration of Brinell testing

The process

A carbide ball [1] is pressed with a high, predetermined pressure down towards the material [2] to be tested. This pressure is usually maintained for about 10-15 seconds till the creation of an indentation in the material whose diameter can then be calculated and compared in a table for calculating Brinell hardness of the material.

Advantages and disadvantages
In comparison with alternative methods
No need for preparation
Provides quite a good representation of the material's surface hardness
Simple method
results are correlated with the tensile test
Easy to use
Not suitable for very hard materials
Can sometimes be seen as a destructive measurement method
Slow tests
Limited size of the material tested
Heavy equipment
The indentation may be difficult to read