Ceramic Hardness Testing

The purpose of hardness testing for ceramic coatings.

Ceramic hardness testing.

Hardness testing of ceramics hardness testing has many pitfalls but good metrological procedures and the use of srms would help to improve the accuracy of conventional tests. Ceramic hardness measurements in engineering are generally measured using a vickers hardness test. In this test a pyramidal diamond indenter is pressed into a polished surface under known loading conditions and the size of the indentation is related to the hardness of the material. Vickers hardness is a resistance value obtained by pressing a diamond indenter onto a test specimen.

Hardness testing is frequently used for characterizing mechanical properties of engineering ceramics. Its value helps to characterize resistance to deformation densification and fracture. The grading of the scale ranges from 0 to 9 and the h indicates the hardness of that specific grade. The mechanical property of a material s hardness is defined as a specific and calculable measure of how resistant a material is to compressive force.

Hardness is a representation of a material s resistance to localised plastic deformation. The pencil scale is a test of hardness that helps to explain to consumers how hard the ceramic coating will be once it s cured to the surface. The hardness of fine ceramics is generally indicated using a vickers hardness number.