CHAN WENG XIN

KEB 150051

TITLE:
IMPACT TEST

OBJECTIVES:
The method in this experiment is called Charpy Impact Test, which is used to
determine the highest energy that can absorb by the carbon and mild steel before they break.
This experiment can also use to determine or investigate the impact strength of the
specimens.

ABSTRACT:
The Charpy Impact Test allows the assessment of materials resistance to high velocity
impact by measuring the impact energy, which is the energy absorbed prior to fracture. This
test is the most commonly used test to determine the impact strength of materials and it is
also often used in quality control applications because it is fast, easy and economical.

INTRODUCTION:
In Material Science, toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy and
plastically deformed without fracturing. It can also define as the amount of energy per unit
volume that a material can absorb before rupturing. Impact testing is a test to determine the
energy absorbed in fracturing a test piece at high velocity. The purpose of impact testing is to
measure an objects ability to resist high-rate loading, it is usually thought of in terms of two
objects striking each other at high relative speed.
There are two standardized tests that commonly used to measure the impact energy or
sometimes referred as Notch Toughness, one of the tests is the Charpy Impact Test and the
other one is Izod Impact test. In this assignment, the method used is Charpy Impact Test,
which known as most common method to test the toughness of materials because this is easy
to prepare.
The Charpy Impact Test, also named as Charpy V-notch Test, is a standardized high
strain-rate test which determines the amount of energy absorbed by a material during fracture.
The impact energy that measured from the test is actually the work done to fracture the
specimen.

CHAN WENG XIN

KEB 150051

The test is carried out by placing a rectangular beam of specimen in between the two
anvils so that the specimen will be notched at the centre by the swinging hammer. By
measuring the height of which the hammer rises after impact and comparing the height from
which it was dropped, the total energy absorbed by the specimen can be found as a result of
the test.

Figure 1: Charpy Testing Machine and Specimen Arrangement.

Figure 2: Standard Charpy-V notch specimen

CHAN WENG XIN

KEB 150051

APPARATUS:
1. Charpy Impact Test Machine

MATERIALS:
1. Carbon steel
2. Mild steel

PROCEDURE:
1. The carbon steel is placed on the supports and in between the anvils so that the break
indentation faces the direction of the pendulum swing and the indent is exactly at the
middle of the supports.
2. The pendulum is raised to the starting point.
3. The pendulum is released by turning the black knob in the anti-clockwise direction.
The carbon is broken.
4. The swinging pendulum is stopped and back to the original place by lifting the
friction brake. The carbon steel is removed from the machine after making sure that
the pendulum is completely stopped.
5. The energy consumed to break the carbon steel is observed from the scale indicated
by the pointer.
6. The value of impact energy is observed and recorded. The fracture area is observed.
7. Steps above are repeating by using the mild steel as the specimen.

CHAN WENG XIN

KEB 150051

RESULTS:
Maximum scale: 300J
Impact velocity: 5.24ms-1

i) Carbon steel

Specimens
Absorbed Energy/J

ii)

Mild steel

Mild Steel

Carbon Steel

298.2

65.0

Table 1: Energy absorbed by the specimens

CHAN WENG XIN

KEB 150051

DISCUSSION:
The pictures i) and ii) show the specimens after the Charpy Test. The two specimens
are totally different when compared to each other. The Carbon Steel was completely broke
into two pieces with some white and smooth surface however, the Mild Steel was just bent
and the surface was still connect with each other.
The pictures above also indicate that the mild steel has undergone plastic deformation
and yielding but carbon steel does not. The percentage of carbon in mild steel is less than the
percentage of carbon in carbon steel. When the percentage of carbon increased, the steel will
became harder and less ductility. It is due to the atom arrangement of the steel, the carbon in
the structure has restrict the moment of the others atom in the steel. Hence, the capability of
carbon steel to absorb impact energy is reduced and it is brittle.
There are other factors will also affect the sudden impact, which is permutation of
atoms arrangement and temperature. Many metals show a ductile-brittle transition property
when cooling. In this case, we may observe a dramatic drop in impact energy absorbed when
the test is carried out under a certain low temperature. This certain temperature for different
metal is defined as the ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT). During the transition,
the yield strength of the metal increases while the ductility decreases.
From the results, we can know that the mild steel can absorb more energy than the
carbon steel when the high pendulum swing and knock on the specimens. After the test, the
temperature of mild steel is higher compared with the carbon steel after experiment. The
energy absorbed by the mild steel had converted the energy absorbed to heat energy so that
the mild steel has become higher. From this we can conclude that materials with higher
toughness can absorb more energy than the less toughness materials.
Finally, the mild steel give an uneven surface but carbon steel does not. From this we
can conclude that the materials with high ductility will give an uneven surface but brittle
materials do not, this can also be shown in the pictures above.