What Is Mechanical Testing: Importance, Types And How to Works
Manufacturers need to ensure that the materials they are using meet with their quality standards before putting any of them into large-scale production, so that the final products will have the best quality according to what they have expected.
For this purpose, manufacturers will conduct a series of tests to determine the mechanical properties of the materials they are using for rapid manufacturing, which will be a part of the whole mechanical test process. In this article, you will learn about various test methods for mechanical testing of different types of materials.
What Is Mechanical Testing?
Mechanical testing means the testing process to determine various mechanical properties of certain materials. Mechanical testing involves understanding and applying basic principles to ensure that the materials meet quality standards and production requirements before large-scale production.
Mechanical testing involves various testing processes, such as Tensile Testing, Compressive Testing, creep testing, chemical analysis, and many others, to determine the overall quality of the materials, in addition to their strengths and weaknesses.
Mechanical testing is an integral part of any design and production process, regardless of what sector it is in and what is important. The scope of mechanical testing ranges from determining material properties to approving finished products. The primary goal is to ensure safety, but mechanical testing also plays an important role in contributing to cost-effective design studies and technological superiority.
However, testing requirements are determined by management and end users. Strong design and production teams pay attention to mechanical testing to validate models, optimize production and improve the overall quality of materials. Because, after presenting the products to consumers, the occurrence of unexpected failures is undesirable.
How Is Mechanical Testing on Materials Required?
Mechanical tests are essential for materials to ensure the quality of materials. Mechanical aptitude is crucial for understanding how materials will perform under different conditions and ensuring they meet the required standards. The material grades are designed for some specific application, to withstand the loads and environment in the application. The materials grades should achieve the minimum specified property. These minimum required quality specifications are verified by the manufacturer after pouring the material and the manufacturer should provide a mill test report.
Mechanical testing plays a crucial role in assessing the suitability of materials for their intended applications, ensuring quality control, and aiding research and development efforts. By measuring properties like Young’s Modulus, tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, reduction in area, hardness, and impact resistance, we can predict how materials will respond to different types of forces.
9 Types of Materials Mechanical Testing: Basic Principles
Mechanical reasoning is essential for interpreting the results of these tests and applying them to real-world scenarios.
Tensile Testing
Tensile Testing Provides the stress-strain curve for materials in addition to properties including yield stress, tensile stress, percentage elongation to failure and Young’s Modulus.
Tensile testing is crucial because it helps engineers understand mechanical concepts and choose the right materials for building things like bridges, airplanes, or even everyday items like chairs and tables. It ensures that these materials can handle the stresses they’ll face in real-life situations, keeping us safe and secure.
When you build a bridge, for example, You’d want to know how strong the cables are that hold the bridge up. Tensile testing helps engineers ensure that the cables can handle the weight of cars and trucks driving over the bridge.
Torsion Testing
Torsion testing is applying a gentle bend on a material to see how flexible and strong it is. It’s a mechanical test used to measure a material’s resistance to flexing or bending.
Torsion testing helps engineers understand mechanical comprehension and how materials behave when subjected to bending forces, which is important for designing things like bridges, beams, or even everyday items such as plastic containers or metal rods. By knowing how much a material can bend before breaking, engineers can design structures and products that are strong and durable enough.
Fatigue Testing
the process of progressive localized permanent structural change occurring in a material subjected to conditions that produce fluctuating stresses and strains at some point or points and that may culminate in cracks or complete fracture after a sufficient number of fluctuations. Mechanical reasoning tests often include fatigue testing to assess how materials will perform under fluctuating stresses and strains.
Fracture Mechanics Testing
Fracture mechanics tests provide data on the ability of a material to resist crack growth and fracture. Mechanical aptitude tests often include fracture mechanics testing to assess a material’s ability to resist crack growth and fracture. Generally, these tests are performed to develop maintenance schedules and to estimate the useful life of components. Fracture mechanics tests consist of various static and dynamic tests to determine the fracture toughness of the material and its resistance to growth at fracture beginning.
Fracture testing is detective work for materials. It helps understand how materials break and why. Imagine you’re investigating a crime scene where something broke – maybe a bridge, a car part, or even a simple household item. Fracture mechanics testing helps engineers figure out what caused the break and how to prevent it from happening again. A fatigue test helps determine a material’s ability to withstand cyclic fatigue loading conditions. By design, a material is selected to meet or exceed service loads that are anticipated in fatigue testing applications. Cyclic fatigue tests produce repeated loading and unloading in tension, compression, bending, torsion or combinations of these stresses.
Compressive Testing
Compressive testing is another basic mechanical engineering test that determines material behavior when exposed to cracking loads. A mechanical aptitude test may include compressive testing to determine how materials behave when exposed to cracking loads.
As a result, it is very important in partial manufacturing because materials go through different stages. It is suitable for a variety of test materials such as metal, plastic, ceramic, or other users in load tolerance.
Creep Testing
This mechanical testing involves exposing the material to constant pressure at high temperatures and recording deformity during a specified period of time. A mechanical reasoning test may include creep testing to assess a material’s tendency to deform under constant pressure at high temperatures. Next, operators draw creep during the time on the graph to get a creep rate.
Creep testing allows manufacturers to determine the material’s tendency to deform under constant pressure at constant temperature.
Tests to Measure Materials' Mechanical Properties
The various forms of mechanical testing above allow manufacturers to know the properties of the material’s strength. You can also take a free practice test to familiarize yourself with the different types of mechanical tests and their applications.
However, these tests do not show how to measure essential properties such as hardness and corrosion resistance. These are four common Tests to Measure Materials Mechanical Properties
1. Impact Testing
Impact testing allows manufacturers to determine the strength to break materials, i.e. the strength of metal impact. There are two types of tests: Sharpie and Izod. Each involves measuring the energy that caused the fracture, and getting the correct answer for the critical depth of the material.
2. Hardness Testing
Hardness test allows manufacturers to know the hardness of the material, i.e. the material’s ability to resist indent distance. The test is done only on the substance. Therefore, there is no need to make this on the finished product. There are many metal hardness tests. However, the most common are:
Brinell Hardness Test
Brinell Hardness Test is the simplest hardness test of metals. It involves the starting distance of a material by placing a steel ball on the material and then placing a load on the ball. After a predetermined time, the operator measures the indent distance caused by the steel ball and load using garatecol calibration. Then they get a Brinell Hardness Number (BHN) by dividing the load by the surface area of the indent distance. The advantages of the Brinell hardness test are that the operator does not have to worry about surface roughness. Apart from that, it is suitable for measuring the hardness of bulk metals. However, the Brinell hardness test is not suitable for welded joints and solid metals.
Vickers Hardness Test
It is similar to Brinell test. But instead of the steel ball, it uses a diamond pyramid as an indicator. Moreover, it is better because the depth of the indent distance does not affect accuracy, and the diamond indent distance is not deformable. The operator puts the indent distance on the material and applies the load. Then, they calculated Vickers’ hardness number (VHN) by dividing the load by the surface area of the indent distance. Vickers hardness test is accurate on small diameter, ensuring correct answers for welded joints.
3. Corrosion Resistance
Corrosion resistance test is accelerating test to determine the reactions of coated and uncoated metals in salty and unsalted conditions. Understanding basic mechanical concepts is crucial for interpreting the results of corrosion resistance tests. There are several types of tests according to international standards:
Salt sprinkle test: the standard and most common way to examine corrosion resistance for coated and uncoated materials. Includes sprinkling materials with a brine and evaluating the appearance of oxide.
CASS Exposure Test: a strong corrosion test for an aluminum alloy and chromium plating on zinc and steel materials. Includes exposing the material to an acetic acid salt spray accelerated with copper. Furthermore, the test can be functional or aesthetic, determining the exposure time (no more than 48 hours).
Conclusion
Material Mechanical testing is a series of testing methods used in analyzing products and materials to ensure safety during production, proper use of materials, and cost effectiveness. It is an important part of every design and manufacturing industry. This article provided many mechanical engineering tests and their importance in manufacturing.
Author
Gavin Leo is a technical writer at Aria with 8 years of experience in Engineering, He proficient in machining characteristics and surface finish process of various materials. and participated in the development of more than 100complex injection molding and CNC machining projects. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience.