Cryst. Res. Technol.

G. BERG,P. GRAU
Fachbereich Physik, Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

Meyer’s hardness law and its relation

to other measures of ball hardness tests
Dedicated to Professor Dr. H e m n n Neels on the occtlsion of the .?@ anniversary of his
Editorship of Crystal Research and Technology

The force dependence of the ball indentation hardness can be described in many cases by MEYER’S
hardness law. The characteristic material parameters are the MEYERconstant K and the MEYER
exponent n. But often other simple measures of hardness are used for technical applications. Exam-
ples are the difference of hardness for two different loads, which gives a good view of the hardening
capability of the material, and the BRINELL hardness.
It is shown that empirical found relations between the mentioned measures of hardness and the
MEYERparameters are strong consequences of the validity of MEYER’Slaw. In special ranges of the
values of the material parameters these empirical relations are linear ones. As a result of the theore-
tical considerations one must recommend to use the theoretical relations to fit the experimental
values, because only in this case all physical conditions are fulfiled automatically.
Die Kraftabhiingigkeit der Kugeleindruckhlirte kann in vielen Fallen durch das MEYERsche Hirte-
gesetz beschrieben werden. Die charakteristischen Materialparameter sind die Meyerkonstante K
und der Meyerexponent n. Aber oft wurden fiir technische Anwendungen andere einfache MeBgroBen
fiir die Hirte benutzt. Beispiele sind die Hiirtedifferenz f i r zwei feste Lasten, die ein gutes Ma8 fur
die Verfestigung des Materials ist, sowie die Brinellhirte.
Es wird gezeigt, daD empirisch gefundene Beziehungen zwischen den erwiihnten Hiirtemal3en und
den Meyerparametern eine direkte Konsequenz der Gultigkeit des MEYEFischen Gesetzes sind. In
bestimmten Wertebereichen der Materialparameter sind diese empirischen Beziehungen linear. Als
Ergebnis der theoretischen Betrachtungen mu8 man empfehlen, diese theoretischen Beziehungen fiir
die Anpassung an die experimentellen Werte zu benutzen, da nur diese alle physikaliihen Bedin-
gungen automatisch erfiillen.

1. Introduction

Ball hardness is a suitable and often used method to characterize the mechanical properties
of materials especially the strain hardness capacity, influenced by surface treatment, aging
and annealing processes. An advantage compared with other mechanical tests (e.g. to deter-
mine the strength of the material) is the fact that hardness can be considered basically as
nondestructively. Also only a low amount of sample material is necessary and hardness
equipment can be found without difficulty in the most laboraties of materials testing.
Different indentation methods are applied to determine characteristic hardness para-
meters. VICKERS,KNOOPand BRINELL(ball sphere) indentation tests are widely used.
A common problem with respect of the analysis of the experimental results of all these
methods is the force dependence of the hardness. In principal this is solved in practice
by two alternative procedures:
(i) The hardness is determined at a fxed constant force only (Especially this is the
procedure for the so called conventional hardness, where the hardness value is calculated
from the remaining indentation after unloading. (ii) Material parameters are determined
from the force-displacement (penetration depth) curve or alternatively from the hard-
150 BERG,GRAU:Meyer’s Hardness Law

ness-force-dependence (The best method in this case is the Universal hardness measure-
ment (NMP). But also a stepwise determination of hardness at different forces can be
used). From a physical point of view the latter procedure must be favoured, because it is
independent on the arbitrary choice of the reference force.
It is well known that MEYER’Slaw of hardness (MEYER)is one of the possibilities to
describe this forcepenetration depth-dependence. But often more simple measures of
hardness are used in technical applications to consider this force dependence of the hard-
ness without an analysis of the whole curve. Examples are an averaged hardness number
H,,, the difference AH of the hardness numbers at the mrurimum and the minimum
force, and the BRINELLhardness HB measured at a special fuced force (see e.g. TIPPING,
CRIPPS).It shall be shown in the following that correlations exist between these mea-
sures and the parameters of MEYER’Slaw, if special conditions are fulfilled. This is in
agreement with empirical findings given in the literature (TIPPING,CRIPPS).

2. Measures of hardness
The MEYERhardness number HM is given by definition for ball indentation
4F
HM = -
nd2
where F is the force and d is the indentation diameter belonging to it. The relationship
between force F and indentation diameter d follows very exactly MEYER’Slaw

F=K($)~

where D is the ball diameter. K and n are material parameters characterizing the hard-
ness properties. In general n 2 2 for ball hardness is found in contradiction to n < 2 for
the so called indentation size effect ISE of VICKERShardness measurement (SARGENT;
GRAU,BERG).The averaged hardness number Ha” is given by

Each of the individual hardness numbers H i ) is measured at a different load fl, where
m is the number of the measurements.
The differences AH of the hardness numbers is defined by
AH = HM(F-) - H ~ ( F r n i ~ ) (4)
giving a very simple index for the strain hardening capacity of the material.
The BRINELLhardness HBwill be calculated by
2F
HB =
nD(D - Jm (5)

3. Derivation of relations to Meyer’s law

3.1. Meyer hardness number
MEYERhardness H / ) (the index M for MEYERshall be cancelled in the following for
simplicity) for a fixed force fl is given for a special material j (characterized by the
Cryst. Res. Technol. 32 (1997)1 151

parameters Kj and nj) by

(2)
1-2/79

H:) = j t4 ~ 2 Kj

where d was eliminated from eq. (1)by eq. (2).

Mostly the MEYER exponent nj differs only slightly from 2 (see e.g. TIPPING,
CRIPPS).Therefore with

nj = 2 + dj and IdiJ<< 1 (7)

a power A1-2/njcan be approximated in the linear limit by

x 1 4
+ (In A ) -
2
This yields the approximation

for the MEYERhardness number in the same limit. One can learn that H:) at a fixed
load but for different materials j is essentially proportional the MEYERconstant Kj of
the materials, but the slope depends slightly on Kj (or better In Kj), too. If one com-
pares similar materials (similar alloys, different treatments) with one another as it is
often the case in technical applications, the MEYERconstants Kj differ only in a very
narrow region (TIPPING,CRIPPS).So with an averaged value K = (1/N) C Kj one can
give the single values Kj by j

Therefore a further approximation of the MEYERhardness number with

l n K j x I n K AKj
+y

is possible by

In this case the variation of the slope of HF' versus Kj is only influenced by the little
quotient AKi/K, that means it is essentially a constant for different materials. This can
be applied for a quick estimation of the MEYERconstant Kj for a special material by
one or only few hardness measurements, when the slope of this group of materials is
known (see e.g. the example of chapter 4).

3.2. Averaged hardness number and difference

of hardness numbers
One can derive the averaged hardness number Ha" for the material j in the same a p
proximation as in chapter 3.1. with eqs. (3) and (10) by
152 BERG,GRAU:
Meyer's Hardness Law

The conclusion with respect of the slope in a Hav,jversus Kj plot is the same as at the
end of the last chapter, especially if one considers that for a comparison of different
materials AKj is positive and negative, respectively, about with the same frequency.
The difference of hardness numbers AH follows from eqs. (4) and (l),if one eliminates
d by eq- (2)

With the supposition eq. (7) with respect to n it follows using eq. (7a) the approxima-
tion
AHj -2 Kj e n
nD2 2) 7 [I- dj] (nj - 2)
(13)

This given exactly AHj = 0 for nj = 2, as one must expect, because a MEYERexponent
n = 2 in eq. (2) means no hardening effect.
The approximation eq. (9) yields

with the averaged value K of all Kj. Products in the order of magnitude of (AKjlK) dj
are neglected. Eqs. (13) and (14) show that the absolute value of the intercept in the
plot AH, versus nj is exactly twice the slope of this straight line.
Obviously the averaged hardness number Ifav,j eq. (11) as well as the difference of
hardness numbers AH, eq. (14) are direct measures of the MEYERparameters Kj and nj,
respectively, for a group of materials where the linear relations eqs. (11) and (14) are
known experimentally.

3.3. Brine11 hardness

The BRINELL hardness HB eq. (5) can be expressed by the MEYERhardness number H
eliminating F a n d d with eqs. (2) and (1). This gives

The second term in the square root of the denominator is equal (d/D)2, which one can
see by comparison with eq. (5). In many practical cases this quotient is very lower than
1 (see e.g. TIPPING, CRIPPS).Therefore an approximation by a TAYLOR series of the
root is possible and gives

showing a direct proportionality between BRINELL hardness HBand MEYERhardness H

in this range of validity, because the second term in the denominator is very small with
respect to 1 (for an example see chapter 4).
Cryst. Res. Technol. 32 (1997)1 153

4. Empirical hardness correlations

Recently TIPPING and CFUPPSinvestigated the hardness properties of neutron irradiated
and unirradiated base-plate and weld-bead material, respectively. They determined for
this group of materials with a ball diameter of D = 1.25 mm hardness values in the
order of magnitude of H x 2.2 GPa and the Meyer parameters Kj and nj given by
K x 3.1 kN ; AKj x 0.3 kN ; dj x 0.13 (174
(In all these cases only the order of magnitude is important for the following examina-
tions, because it is sufficiently to estimate slopes and intercepts, respectively).
Simultaneousley they measured at the same samples with seven loads
Fj = 300 (=Fmin);
312.5; 400; 500; 625; 945; 1250 N(=F,,) (17b)
the averaged hardness number HBV.j, the difference of hardness number AH, and the
BRINELL hardness HB. They have found by a formal linear regression procedure without
a theoretical basis the following empirical correlations :
averaged hardness number and MEYERconstant
Hav,j= clKj + bl = 0.72Kj + 0.036 (c1 in mm--2,K i n IcN, and bl GPa) (18)
difference of hardness numbers and ~ I E Y Eexponent
R
AHj = qnj - = 1.119nj - 2.198 (c2 and in GPa) (19)
BRINELLhardness and MEYERhardness
HB= H - b3 = H - 0.1 (b3 in GPa) (20)

5. Comparison of the theoretical relations

w i t h the empirical correlations
The relations eqs. ( l l ) , (14), and (16) shall be compared with the correlations eqs. (18),
(19), and (20), respectively. The first ones give theoretically
from eq. (11)
Hav,jz 0.81[1 - 0.111 Kj = 0.72Kj (21)
from eq. (14)
AHj M 1.13nj - 2.26 (22)
and from eq. (16)
H
HBx -= 0.97H
+
1 0.03
At first it will be noticed that the theoretical eqs. (21) and (23) do not show an inter-
cept in contradiction to the empirical correlations eqs. (18) and (20), respectively. But
one can see quickly that the values of the intercept of eqs. (18) and (20) do not exceed
the first term of the respective equation by 2% and 5%, respectively. In contrast the
slopes are in a good agreement. In the first case both slopes have exactly the same
value, in the second one the deviation is only 3%. The terms of eqs. (19) and (22) agree
with one another very well, the deviations do not exceed 3%. As one must expect eq.
(22) shows exactly that the hardening effect vanishes (AH = 0) for nj = 2.
154 BERG,GRAU:Meyer’s Hardness Law

Obviously the intercepts of the empirical relations eqs. (18) and (20) follow only from
the experimental scatter of the measured values and are only an artefact originating in
the formal h e a r regression procedure. So the comparison of the theoretical connections
with the empirical ones show a very good agreement. Therefore it is to recommend for
future applications to fit experimental results directly to the eqs. ( l l ) , (14), and (16),
respectively. In this way one fulfils all physical conditions automatically.

6. Conclusions
MEYER’S hardness law describes the load dependence of ball indentation hardness with a
good accuracy in many cases, see as a recent example TIPPING and CRIPPS.The charac-
teristic parameters are the MEYERconstant K and the MEYERexponent n (see eq. 2)).
Besides this it is usually to introduce additional measures of hardness for technical appli-
cations. An example is the difference AH of hardness numbers which gives a more direct
view of the hardening capability of the material. Also often BRINELL hardness is used
instead of ball hardness. It was shown that a strong connection exists between all these
measures and MEYER’Slaw. In general these relations are very complicated. But for
typical ranges of the values of the material parameters the above derived linear equa-
tions follow in agreement with empirical findings. However the last ones show additional
terms due to the formal fitting procedure originating in the scatter of the experimental
points. These additional terms have no physical reason, therefore one must recommend
to fit the experimental values with the theoretical equations. In this way all physical
conditions will be fulfilled automatically, e.g. the condition that H must be zero when K
is zero, or the condition that AH must be zero (no hardening capability) when n is two.
The results of this investigation justify the application of the simple measures of hard-
ness for technical purposes. In addition they allow a direct linking to the parameters of
the well known MEYERlaw of hardness.
To manifest the limit of linear approximation there are prepared ball hardness experi-
ments on coldworked and soft-glown steels. The experiments are favourable carried out
by EMCO-Hardness-Tester M4/025 with continous forcepenetration depth facilitis. We
thank the EMCO-Maier GmbH, Hallein, Austria, for arranging the possibility to per-
form the experiments.

References
GRAU,P . , BERG,G.:Materialprufung 36 (1994) 227
MEYER,E. : Zeitschr. Verein Deutscher Ingen. 52 (1908) 645
NMP: Normenausschud Materialpriifung DIN 50359-1, draft Okt. 1996
SARGENT, P. M.: In BLAU,P. J. ; LAWN,B. R. (Edts.) : Microindentation Techniques in Materials
Science and Engineering. ASTM STP 889. Philadelphia:Americ. Soc.Testing Materials (1985) 161
TIPPING,P . , CRIPPS,R.: Int. J. Pressure Vessels & Piping 61 (1995) 77

(Received August. 28, 1996; accepted October, 10, 1996)

Author’s addresses :
Prof. Dr. Dr. GUM= BERG,Prof. Dr. PETERGRAU
Fachbereich Physik der Universitat
Postfach
D-06099 Halle, Germany