Lab 1

Jomini Hardenability Test

MAS 406
Ronny Landsverk
October 12, 2014
Date Performed:
Partners:
Instructor:

Sept 23, 2014

Alexander Sjoeberg
Dr. Cecilie Oedegaard

Objective

To determine the hardenability of two different steel qualities, by aid of the

Jomini Test.
Further analysis of the grain structure along the specimen should be carried
through, but there was no time left to do the necessary steps in the laboratory
before the end of working hours so this part is intentionally left out.

2
2.1

Theory
Hardness and Micro-structure

Hardness is a measure of the ability of a material to resist plastic deformation.

From measurements of hardness we can obtain the flow curve, i.e. the true
stress-strain curve. Hardness is dependant of the microstructure which can
change when the material is subjected to heat.
(This section has not been given great consideration since the microstructure
analysis were dropped).

2.2

The Jomini Test

The purpose of the Jomini test, is to determine the ability of a steel to be hardened in bulk depth by method of preheating and quenching.
A specimen of the alloy of interest, with standard measurements, is preheated in
a furnace with a temperature of 900 C, for a period of 30 min. This specimen
1

is then fixed in space as a jet of water is cooling the rod. This jet of water is
controlled such that only one end of the rod is subjected to water during the
period of cooling. Thus, a cooling gradient in the rod axial direction will be
obtained.
The rod is then carefully grinded to remove inpurities, preparing for measurements of hardness either by Vickers or Rockwell method, Marrow (2001). The
hardness testing is carried through by testing linearly spaced points from one
end to another, simulating the surface and bulk-depth of a quenched body.

2.3

Vickers Hardness

This method of testing involves indenting the surface of a specimen by applying

a load on a square-based diamond pyramid. The occurring hardness is then
obtained by measuring the diagonal of the indentation left from the pyramid.
These measurements are made by using an optical microscope. The average diagonal length measured is converted to a corresponding Vickers hardness number by means of table or formula.

Method

The attending class was divided into two groups, each given a test specimen
quenched as defined in 2.2. These specimen were of different material composition. Our group was given the ST60 specimen.
The groups were then sent into another part of the lab to grind a smooth plane
enabling for the Vickers testing along the bar.
The test specimen was fastened in a screw drive in such an orientation that
the smooth grinded plane was horizontally facing upwards. This was done by
eyesight. The fastened specimen on the Vickers testing machine can be adjusted
in all directions in a plane perpendicular to the indenting pyramids axis of motion/load. Normally there are relatively small adjustments in position needed,
but for our case, we had to move 10 cm along the specimen relative to the microscope and the machine could only be moved 20 mm by turning the nob on
the positioning screw. So we had to relocate the specimen and as we did so in
a cumbersome way, this lead to a decrease in measuring quality as the bar was
not supported properly.

Results and Conclusions

The following figure displays the data from both groups, as listed in table 1.

Figure 1: Results
As expected, the measurements taken near the quenched end of the specimen
have the greatest Vickers hardness values. The data from the ST60 specimen
implies that bulk depth over 30 mm have limited quench hardening abilities.
For the Rigor specimen, there is a tendency in the data to drop more slowly as
the distance increases, but there are large discrepancies from one data-point to
the next.
The measuring quality could have been greater if we had supported the specimen sufficiently during the Vickers hardness test. However the benefit for doing
such mistakes, are valuable as lessons for being better prepared for practice to
come.
Reading the obtained data, one can conclude that the quench hardening process
will have a greater effect near the surface for the ST60 composition compared
to the Rigor composition. However, for the Rigor case, the effect seems to go
deeper into the material.

Dist [mm]
0
5
10
15
20
25
31
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95

St60 [HV10]
304
299
236
193
169
126,4
187
102,7
108,2
104,6
115,3
100,3
157
123,8
118,9
166
123,2
151,4
225
176

Rigor [HV10]
613
620
585
599
606
613
613
592
606
599
554
376
579
548
542
592
606
554
536
503

Table 1: Acquired Data from Experiment

References
Marrow, J. (2001). Understanding the jomini end quench test.