Objective:

1. To develop an understanding of fracture toughness.

2. To investigate the influence of the notch shape on the notched bar impact work.
3. To test ability of different types of spec impacts using two materials for impact test; mild
steel and carbon steel.


Theory:

Impact test is a test used in studying the toughness of material. The definition of
toughness is defined as the capacity of material to absorb energy and deform plastically
before fracturing. Toughness is associated with both ductility and strength of materials.
Since the amount of plastic deformation that occurs before fracture is a measure of the
ductility of the material and because the stress needed to cause fracture isa measure of
its strength, it follows that toughness is associated with both the ductility and strength of
the material. Impact test involves the sudden and dynamic application of the load. For this
purpose, in general, a pendulum is made to swing from a fixed height and strike the
standard impact specimen. There are two types of method to test impact test which is Izod
test and Charpy test. These two methods are different in placing the specimens. In Izod
test, the specimen is placed in vertical position and the notch area is facing the pendulum.
Meanwhile in Charpy test, the specimen is placed horizontally with unnotched area facing
the pendulum. Moreover, Izod impact specimen only has a V-notch specimen while
Charpy impact specimen has both U-notch and V-notch specimen. Charpy test result can
indicate how brittle the materials are. The most common method for the measurement of
impact strength that is Charpy tests is used in this experiment.




Specimen and Equipments:
1. Pendulum impact tester G.U.N.T.WP400
2. Vernier caliper
3. Impact specimens : mild steel (V and U-notch), carbon steel (V and U-notch)

Procedure:
1) The dimensions of the unnotched length and the thickness of the specimen are measured.
2) The pendulum is raised to the left until it indicates the maximum energy range on the upper
indicator unit.
3) The specimen is placed horizontally across supports with the notch away from the pendulum
4) Pendulum is released.
5) The indicated value from the indicator unit is recorded.
6) The brake is applied until the pendulum has returned to its stable hanging vertical position.
7) The specimen is removed from the testing area and failure surface is observed.










Results:
All the measurements of specimens are recorded in Table 1.
I. Thickness, h [mm]
II. Unnotched length, l [mm]


Specimen Dimension R1(mm) R2(mm) R3(mm) Average(mm)
Mild steel
U-notch
h 5.00 5.02 5.00 5.01
l 5.68 5.66 5.66 5.67
Mild steel
V-notch
h 5.02 5.00 5.00 5.01
l 8.02 8.00 8.00 8.01
Carbon steel
U-notch
h 5.02 5.00 5.00 5.01
l 5.90 5.88 5.90 5.89
Carbon steel
V-notch
h 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00
l 7.46 7.50 7.48 7.48

Table 1: Measurement of Mild Steel and Carbon Steel









Specimen
Without specimen
Datum with
specimen
(Nm)
Impact value
(Nm)
Datum 1
(Nm)
Datum 2
(Nm)
Datum 3
(Nm)
Average
(Nm)
Mild steel
U-notch
4.90 5.00 5.00 4.97 25.40 20.43
Mild steel
V-notch
5.00 5.00 5.10 5.03 25.50 20.47
Carbon steel
U-notch
5.00 5.10 5.00 5.03 7.90 2.87
Carbon steel
V-notch
5.00 5.00 5.10 5.03 5.70 0.67

Table 2: Data of impact energy for Mild Steel and Carbon Steel



Discussion:
By comparing all the specimens used, it can be conclude that the best specimen that
gives highest impact energy is mild steel (v-notch). Mild steel is tougher than carbon steel as it
has lower carbon composition in it and the v-notch provides better performance against impact
as it gives bigger unnotched cross-section area compared to u-notch mild steel bar. Toughness
is a property, which is capacity of a material to resist fracture, when subjected to impact.
Tougher materials such as mild steel need higher energy or impact to break or fracture. So, this
means that it can absorb more energy applied on it. So, hypothesis that can be made from this
experiment is the more energy absorbed by the specimen, the more toughness the materials
will be. The actual results obtained from the experiment showed that the hypothesis is similar to
the result obtained. It is stated that mild steel is tougher than carbon steel and the result from
the experiment also shows the same as mild steel absorb more energy compared to carbon
steel. This is because mild steel is more ductile than carbon steel and carbon steel is a more
brittle as the composition of carbon is higher in carbon steel.
In this experiment, carbon steel specimens broke completely into two parts with
smoother broken surface while mild steel only undergo plastic deformation and did not
fractured. This is because mild steel is more ductile than carbon steel. Besides that, u-notch
specimen of carbon steel gives smoother surface of fracture compared to the v-notch specimen
while u-notch specimen of mild steel bend more than the v-notch specimen. So, it can be said
that u-notch specimens cannot absorb high energy produce by the pendulum during the impact
as u-notch specimen has smaller unnotched cross-section area. Smaller unnotched cross-
section area can only absorb small amount of energy from the impact. The correlation that could
be made is a higher toughness material will absorb more energy upon impact and will therefore
result in a high height to which the pendulum arm will swing to following impact and gives high
impact value reading. Specimen with lowest absorbed energy means its brittle and has least
toughness which can break easily and cannot withstand the sudden high loads. Specimen with
highest absorbed energy means its ductile and has highest toughness which can withstand the
sudden high loads upon collision.
Factors that can affect the impact energy value obtained could come from two aspects in
this experiment which are error because of the specimens condition and also the equipment
used. The specimen used in this experiment rust a little so it may affect the plastic deformation
or fracture condition result. The pendulum impact tester used in the experiment is old and does
not in it most effective condition where it cannot give precise reading. This condition is proven
right based on Table 2 where the average datum readings give some value of impact. If the
pendulum impact tester is in a good condition, the reading should be zero as there is no
collisions occur.
Charpy test is widely used during construction of pressure vessels and also in
constructions of bridge which is very important to determine which material is the most suitable
against air factor and load on it.

Conclusion:
Impact is a high force or shock applied over a short time period. Such a force or
acceleration can sometimes have a greater effect than a lower force applied over a
proportionally longer time period. At normal speeds, during a collision, an object struck by a
projectile will deform, and this deformation will absorb most, or even all, of the force of the
collision. However, these deformations cannot occur instantaneously. A high velocity collision
(an impact) does not provide sufficient time for these deformations to occur. Thus, the struck
material behaves as if it were more brittle than it is, and the majority of the applied force goes
into fracturing the material. From the Charpy impact test that we have done, carbon steel
undergoes brittle fracture while the mild steel undergoes ductile fracture but because of low
energy supply from the pendulum, the mild steel just undergoes plastic deformation. More
energy is absorbed by mild steel shows that it is more suitable to be use in the structural
construction that expose to high load and high impact collision such as vehicles body.