The Static Notch-Bar Tensile Test

An Indication of Tensile Strength, Hardness, Ductility and Toughness By G. Fitzgerald-Lee, M.I.E.I., A.R.Ae.S.
ARIOUS steels, or even different heats of the same steel, with identical mechanical properties when determined by ordinary tests, vary considerably in behaviour in service; and such differences of performance are neither due to any variation in composition nor to any other known factors. That these differences exist is now known but their causes are still very much matters for metallurgical conjecture. It is known that steels tempered from the austenitic range and tempered to give a martensitic structure become increasingly ductile with rise of temperature. The ordinary tests, however, fail to give any indication of the variations in behaviour, on tempering, between even different low-alloy steels, to say nothing of different heats of any one particular steel. The notched-bar impact-bend test is capable of revealing differences in impact properties among steels which have been tempered to levels of mechanical strength identical with the results obtained by ordinary tensile tests. The notched-bar test is, however, highly complex, involving a certain amount of tension, compression, bending and shear, and its full significance is not yet clearly understood. Of its three characteristic features: high speed, notch, and bend action, the notch is the most potent embrittling factor. Recent investigations have shown that static notched-bar tensile tests give more fully understandable results and evaluate metals in very much the same manner as impact tests. The static notched-bar tensile test is carried

INSPECTION
and the fourth is generally similar to several standard steels, including B.S.S. S.5 V7 (En.l5). In preparation for the tests, the relationship between the tempering temperatures and ordinary tensile strengths of the four steels was determined. The steels were then treated at temperatures selected from the data obtained to give tensile strength levels of from 89 to 122 tons per square inch. The first steel was heated in an electric furnace in every case, and the remainder open hearth. The results of the static notched-bar tensile tests showed that this type of test differentiates with a high degree of sensitivity between the different steels at identical levels of mechanical strength, and even between different heats of any one steel at a given strength or hardness. In the higher hardness ranges studied the first two steels show much higher static notch tensile values than the third steel, which, in turn, is markedly superior to the fourth steel. The differences are depicted in the nomogram. The nomogram, evolved from the test figures, is based on the Ultimate Tensile Strength figures, in tons per square inch, which are given on the top line and exactly repeated on the bottom line. The second line gives the Brinell Hardness Factors which were found to correspond with the various tensile strength figures. This is followed by the concentric and eccentric notch strength, in tons per square inch, separated by the notchductility figures, in percentages, for each steel in turn, numbered according to the composition table already given. Many interesting facts may be deduced from the nomogram, as, for example, the instability of the fourth steel, the high concentric notch strength stability of the first (with only 17 per cent loss throughout the scale), and the unstable notch-ductility of the fourth steel, involving a strength loss of 93 per cent between the tensile strength limits given. Although the notched-bar impact-bend test is not yet quite understood, even less is known at present about the static notched-bar test, which, however, is likely to be proved one of the most useful of all mechanical tests once its technique has been perfected and its implications become more fully understood.

out in an ordinary tensile testing machine in the normal manner with the exception that instead of employing a standard tensile test-piece a modification is used. A sharp sixty degrees circumferential vee-notch is machined at the centre of the gauge length, the radius at the root of the notch being less than 00015 in. The diameter of the test piece is half an inch, and the diameter at the root of the notch is 035. When the eccentric loading test is carried out the same notched tensile specimen is used as in the concentric loading test but bending is superimposed on the tensile stress by means of a wedge-shaped washer under the shoulder of the head of the test-piece. A series of tests on four different steels has enabled a comparison to be made between the static notched-bar tensile test figures and the tensile strength and Brinell hardness figures obtained on standard machines. The results are depicted and correlated in the accompanying nomogram. The composition of the four steels was as follows:
No. 2 3 4 C. 0.41 0.39 0.4 0.42 Ni. 3.5 3.46 0 0 Cr. 0.03 0 1 0 Mo. | Mn. 0.02 0 0 0 0.83 0.79 0.69 1.81 P. 0.016 0.018 0.014 0.023 S. 0.014 0.029 0.023 0.022 Si. 0.27 0.23 0.16 0.24

The first two steels approximate to B.S.S. S.69, which has slightly more chromium, phosphorus, sulphur and silicon; the third differs from D.T.D.167 only in that it has no molybdenum;

September 1949

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