Mechanical testing


Mechanical testing covers a wide range of tests, which can be divided broadly into two types:
  1. those that aim to determine a material's mechanical properties, independent of geometry.
  2. those that determine the response of a structure to a given action, e.g. testing of composite beams, aircraft structures to destruction, etc.

    Mechanical testing of materials

There exists a large number of tests, many of which are standardized, to determine the various mechanical properties of materials. In general, such tests set out to obtain geometry-independent properties; i.e. those intrinsic to the bulk material. In practice this is not always feasible, since even in tensile tests, certain properties can be influenced by specimen size and/or geometry. Here is a listing of some of the most common tests:
  • Hardness Testing
  • *Vickers hardness test, which has one of the widest scales
  • *Brinell hardness test
  • *Knoop hardness test, for measurement over small areas
  • *Janka hardness test, for wood
  • *Meyer hardness test
  • *Rockwell hardness test, principally used in the USA
  • *Shore durometer hardness, used for polymers
  • *Barcol hardness test, for composite materials
  • Tensile testing, used to obtain the stress-strain curve for a material, and from there, properties such as Young modulus, yield stress, tensile stress and % elongation to failure.
  • Impact testing
  • *Izod test
  • *Charpy test
  • Fracture toughness testing
  • *Linear-elastic
  • *K–R curve
  • *Elastic plastic
  • Creep Testing, for the mechanical behaviour of materials at high temperatures
  • Fatigue Testing, for the behaviour of materials under cyclic loading
  • *Load-controlled smooth specimen tests
  • *Strain-controlled smooth specimen tests
  • *Fatigue crack growth testing
  • Non-Destructive Testing

    General references

Category:Materials science
Category:Materials testing
Category:Tests