DETERMINATION OF LOCAL DISTRIBUTION OF HARDNESS FOR INVESTIGATION OF MATERIAL BEHAVIOR UNDER LOAD APPROACHING ITS STRENGTH

J. Valach(a), M. Zd'arsky(b), D. Kytyr(a), T. Doktor(a), and M. Sperl(a) ((a)Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i., Prague, (b)Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Transportation Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic): Determination of Local Distribution of Hardness for Investigation of Material Behavior Under Load Approaching its Strength The paper presents enhanced method for study of severe plastic deformation by hardness mapping utilizing portable hardness tester, flatbed scanner and software processing tool. This technique can be advantageous in situations, where crude information is not only sufficient, but also preferred, especially when it concerns testing on-site and on medium to large scale specimens and construction. Validity of the approach is supported by a comparison of hardness mapping results to the results obtained by an independent method based on evaluation of plastic strains from thermograms. It is shown that both methods determined similar shape and the extent of the plastic zone of the studied specimens.