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Impact Test

1. Impact testing is used to determine how brittle materials behave under high strain rates, like sudden blows, since tensile tests at low strain rates do not always predict fracture behavior at high rates. 2. Two common impact tests are the Charpy and Izod tests, which measure the energy absorbed during fracture of a notched specimen struck by a weighted pendulum. The tests can identify temper brittleness and ductile vs brittle fracture modes. 3. Materials exhibit a ductile to brittle transition over a temperature range, where impact energy absorption decreases suddenly as temperature drops below the transition point and fracture changes from ductile to brittle. This was a factor in sudden ship fractures during World War II

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51 views7 pages

Impact Test

1. Impact testing is used to determine how brittle materials behave under high strain rates, like sudden blows, since tensile tests at low strain rates do not always predict fracture behavior at high rates. 2. Two common impact tests are the Charpy and Izod tests, which measure the energy absorbed during fracture of a notched specimen struck by a weighted pendulum. The tests can identify temper brittleness and ductile vs brittle fracture modes. 3. Materials exhibit a ductile to brittle transition over a temperature range, where impact energy absorption decreases suddenly as temperature drops below the transition point and fracture changes from ductile to brittle. This was a factor in sudden ship fractures during World War II

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Chukka
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Lecture 3 Dr. Layla M. Hasan

Impact Test
The tensile test is normally performed at a low strain rate, at which the specimen is
very slowly loaded and elongated. When a material is subjected to a sudden, intense
blow, in which the strain rate is extremely rapid, the material may behave in a much
more brittle manner than is observed in the tensile test.
Impact testing techniques were established so as to determine the fracture
characteristics of materials at high loading rates. It was realized that the results of
laboratory tensile tests (at low loading rates) could not predict fracture behavior. For
example, under some circumstances normally ductile metals fracture suddenly and
with very little plastic deformation under high loading rates.
Impact tests are used to indicate the toughness of a material*, and particularly its
capacity for resisting mechanical shock. Brittleness, resulting from a variety of
causes, is often not revealed during a tensile test. For example, nickel – chromium
constructional steels suffer from a defect known as temper brittleness. This is caused
by faulty heat-treatment, yet a tensile test-piece derived from a satisfactorily treated
material and one produced from a similar material but which has been incorrectly
heat-treated might both show approximately the same tensile strengths and
elongations. In an impact test, however, the difference would be apparent; the
unsatisfactory material would prove to be extremely brittle as compared with the
correctly treated one, which would be tough.
The energy absorbed at fracture is generally related to the area under the stress-strain
curve which is termed as toughness in some references, Figure 1. Brittle materials
have a small area under the stress-strain curve (due to its limited toughness) and as
a result, little energy is absorbed during impact failure. As plastic deformation

*toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy and plastically deform


without fracturing or it is the amount of energy per unit volume that a material can
absorb before rupturing
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capability of the materials (ductility) increases, the area under the curve also
increases and absorbed energy and respectively toughness increase.

Figure 1: Toughness of Different Materials


Similar characteristics can be seen on the fracture surfaces of broken specimens. The
fracture surfaces for low energy impact failures, indicating brittle behavior, are
relatively smooth and have crystalline appearance in the metals. On the contrary,
those for high energy fractures have regions of shear where the fracture surface and
have rougher and more highly deformed appearance, called fibrous fracture,
Figure 2.

Figure 2: Ductile vs. brittle fracture

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Types of Impact Tests


Two standardized tests, the Charpy and Izod, were designed and are still used to
measure the impact energy (sometimes also termed notch toughness). For both
Charpy and Izod, the specimen is in the shape of a bar of square cross section, into
which a notch is machined , Figure 3a. The apparatus for making V-notch impact
tests is illustrated schematically in Figure 3b.The load is applied as an impact blow
from a weighted pendulum hammer that is released from a fixed height h. The
specimen is positioned at the base as shown. Upon release, a knife edge mounted on
the pendulum strikes and fractures the specimen at the notch, which acts as a point
of stress concentration for this high-velocity impact blow. The pendulum continues
its swing, rising to a maximum height h′, which is lower than h. The energy
absorption, computed from the difference between h and h′, is a measure of the
impact energy.
The primary differences between the Charpy and Izod techniques lies in the manner
of specimen support, as illustrated in Figure 3b. Variables including specimen size
and shape as well as notch configuration and depth influence the test results,Table
1.
Table 1: Differences between the Charpy and Izod techniques

The energy absorbed at fracture E can be obtained by simply calculating the


difference in potential energy of the pendulum before and after the test such as,
E = m. g. (h-h ')
Where m is the mass of pendulum and g is the gravitational acceleration.

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Figure 3:(a) Specimen used for Charpy and Izod impact tests.
(b) A schematic drawing of an impact testing apparatus.
The hammer is released from fixed height h and strikes the specimen; the energy
expended in fracture is reflected in the difference between h and the swing height
h′. Specimen placements for both Charpy and Izod tests are also shown.

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The details of standard test-pieces used in both the Izod and Charpy tests are shown
in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Details of standard test-pieces used in both the Izod and Charpy
tests.
Ductile-to-Brittle Transition
One of the primary functions of Charpy and Izod tests is to determine whether a
material experiences a ductile-to-brittle transition with decreasing temperature and,
if so, the range of temperatures over which it occurs. Widely used steels can exhibit
this ductile-to-brittle transition with disastrous consequences. The ductile to brittle
transition is related to the temperature dependence of the measured impact energy
absorption.
At higher temperatures the Charpy V notch energy is relatively large, in correlation

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with a ductile mode of fracture. As the temperature is lowered, the impact energy
drops suddenly over a relatively narrow temperature range, below which the energy
has a constant but small value; that is, the mode of fracture is brittle.
Alternatively, appearance of the failure surface is indicative of the nature of fracture
and may be used in transition temperature determinations. For ductile fracture this
surface appears fibrous or dull, as in the steel specimen of Figure 5 that was tested
at 79 oC. Conversely, totally brittle surfaces have a granular (shiny) texture the -59oC
specimen, Figure 5.

Figure 5: Photograph of fracture surfaces of A36 steel Charpy V-notch


specimens tested at indicated temperatures (in oC).

For many alloys there is a range of temperatures over which the ductile-to-brittle
transition occurs this presents some difficulty in specifying a single ductile-to-brittle
transition temperature.
Structures constructed from alloys that exhibit this ductile-to-brittle behavior should
be used only at temperatures above the transition temperature, to avoid brittle and
catastrophic failure.
Classic examples of this type of failure occurred, with disastrous consequences,
during World War II when a number of welded transport ships, away from battle,

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suddenly split in half. The ships were constructed of a steel alloy that possessed
adequate toughness according to room temperature tensile tests. The brittle fractures
occurred at relatively low ambient temperatures, at about 4 oC, in the vicinity of the
transition temperature of the alloy. Each fracture crack originated at some point of
stress concentration, probably a sharp corner or fabrication defect, and then
propagated around the entire size of the ship.

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