Hardness measurement of thin strips

Abstract

Measuring hardness of thin strips, foils and films using standard hardness testers is limited, mainly due to the indentation loads available with the standard testing machines. The available loads aretoo high to allow accurate determination of the thin strip hardness values without the influence of the substrate. The aim of this research is to present two examples, first when the hardness can be accurately measured only by the experiment and second when the additional calculations are required because of the low strip thickness. Two composite hardness models, including Jönsson and Hogmarkmodel and Korsunksy modelwere chosen and applied to fit the experimental data. The applicability of the mentioned models wasverified on the composite system comprising hard strip and soft/hard substrate. It wasproven that the measurements performed for strip/hard substrate systems require application of different composite models, which canprovide reliable and fast results in industrial environments.