TITLE

Impact toughness of metallic materials.

OBJECTIVES

Study the principles of bristle fracture in mild steel.

Understand the impact toughness of materials with different heat and strengthening treatments.
Interpret obtained experimental data for the selection of engineering materials.

INTRODUCTION
Impact toughness of material test very important to select a material for a certain work piece in Engineering.
To measure the toughness of materials there are two tests; Charpy test and Zoid test. These two type of tests
both can be test to make use of a pendulum testing machine and procedures are same.
In this SLIIT laboratory session; charpy test has used to measure the impact toughness in materials. Charpy
V-notch test, is standardized high strain rate test which determines the amount of energy absorbed by a
material during fracture. This absorbed energy is a measure of a given material's notch toughness and acts
as a tool to study temperature-dependent ductile-brittle transition.

Today it is utilized in many industries for testing materials, for example the construction of pressure vessels
and bridges to determine how storms will affect the materials used. - (Wikipedia-2015)

THEORY

This is the experiment is how to check the toughness of materials. Toughness of material a material is greatly
affected by alloying compositions, Temperature (ductile to brittle transition- DBT), Heat treatments, and
Strengthening mechanisms. Toughness is very close to both ductility and strength of materials
In this laboratory session used V shape notch. There are two reason to use v shaped notch. Those two reasons
are to determine the correct point to fracture the specimen and to reduce the area.

In this test the pendulum is swing up to its starting position (height H0) and then it is allowed to strike the
notched specimen, fixed in a vice. The pendulum fractures the specimen, spending a part of its energy. After
the fracture the pendulum swings up to a height H. (substech, 2015)
The following figure shows how the pendulum is placed in impact test machine.
Figure 01 - schematic diagram of impact test machine

If there is no specimen in the bottom then, the hammer comes to the same level to the initial position. If it
has specimen then, the specimen absorb some sort of energy from the hammer because of this reason it goes
only height H (height is less than initial point) as above figure shows. Near the H and H0 the hammer has
both kinetic energy and potential energy but, when it comes near to specimen (in the lower height (H=0))
then this has only kinetics energy. These kinetic energy is absorb from specimen; as a result of that the
hammer goes only to H0. When the specimen absorb these energy the inter molecular inside the specimen
breaks from the v shaped notch. Therefore we can read the toughness of the material by the dial in the impact
test machine. That directly gives the reading of the absorbed energy.

Absorb energy = mg mgH0

m= weight of the hammer (pendulum)
g= gravitational acceleration
H= initial height of the hammer
H0= the maximum height after hit to the mild steel bar
The different temperature of a material affects to the toughness of a material. The ductile to brittle transition
temperature is the temperature at which the failure mode of a material changes from ductile to brittle
fracture.
This temperature may be defined by the average energy between the ductile and brittle regions, at some
specific absorbed energy, or by some characteristic fracture appearance.
Factors that effect on the charpy impact energy of specimen include notches, yield strength and ductility
and fracture mechanism.

Figure 02 Stress strain diagram

Fracture toughness is indicated by the area above curve on strain-strain diagram

MATERIAL AND APPARATUS

Mild steel bar

Centering device
Notching device
Refrigerator
Oven
 PROCEDURE
First take a mild steel bar specimen.
Specimen preparation
1. Specimen dimensions are given below. In this practical, we use V-type notch specimen that was
machined by nothing device.
2. Specimen was prepared according to the direction in the figure 03
Before testing
1. Protect personal from the swing pendulum and flying broken specimen.
2. Familiarize with the operation knob that controls the pendulum movement.
Specimen was centered by using centering device.
Then pendulum was raised up to its starting point (highest potential energy stored place) and
pendulum was locked.
Pendulum was released by turning the operation knob into impact position, therefore impact
toughness of the specimen was obtained from the dial meter.
Next, apply a break using turning the operation knob to stop the pendulum.
Then removed the specimen from the testing area and failure was observed.
Same procedure has done with the different temperature specimen as -20 C, 25 C and 150 C
The results were discussed

Figure 03- how the hammer hits to specimen ( substech,2015)

Figure 04- impact test machine

55 mm

Figure 05: Dimension of the impact specimen

CALCULATION
As in the impact test machine there is a friction in it. Therefore dial does not give the real reading.
The initial reading is 1J.
Actual value = Observed value Initial value

Actual value (1500 C) = 78J -1J

= 77J

Actual value (250 C) = 22J- 1J

= 21J

Actual value (-20 C) = 7J -1J

= 6J

RESULTS

Sample Sample Notch Broken Toughness Percentage

No Details Type Temperature Or Reading ductility
(Celsius) Unbroken

1 Mild steel V notch 1500 C broken 78 J 45% - 50%

2 Mild steel V notch 250 C broken 22 J 5% - 10%

3 Mild steel V notch -250 C broken 7 J 0% - 2%

CONCLUSION
The charpy impact test was used to examine the toughness of mild steel .The conclusion of this lab session
is how the impact toughness of materials with different heat and strengthening treatments. When the
temperature goes high the toughness of the material also goes high as a result of this the plastic deformation
of the material also goes high.
The different can be derived by the different impact energy absorption or by the characteristics of fracture
appearance.
The reading can be vary because of the friction occurred in the impact machine as the result of this can have
the large amount of energy other than real energy.

According to the temperature in the environment the Engineers can conclude the suitable material to a
structure.

REFERENCES

Wikipedia (2015) charpy impact test

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charpy_impact_test
The Design and Methods of Construction of Welded Steel Merchant Vessels: Final Report of a (U.S.
Navy) Board of Investigation (July 1947). "Welding Journal" 26 (7,). Welding Journal. p. 569.
Substech (2015) fracture toughness, impact test
http://www.substech.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fracture_toughness
Twi-global (2015) Types of notch
http://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/job-knowledge/mechanical-testing-notched-bar-
or-impact-testing-071/