Hardness testing system

1 . A system for determining a hardness of a test material during hardness testing, the system comprising:

a Brinell microscope camera configured to generate image data during hardness testing, the image data comprising one or more images of a test surface of the test material and a reference surface of a hardness bar, each test surface and reference surface having one or more indentations formed and having one or more features including graininess;

memory to store machine-readable instructions;

one or more processors to access the memory and execute the machine-readable instructions to implement a hardness tester operable to:

receive the image data generated by the Brinell microscope camera in response to a hardness test, wherein a force is applied by a tool to the hardness bar to cause an indenter to form the one or more indentations on the test surface and the reference surface during hardness testing;

analyze the image data to determine an indentation size of each indentation on the test surface and the reference surface formed by the indenter;

computing an average indentation size of the determined indentation sizes of the test surface and the reference surface; and

predict, by a hardness predictor, a hardness of the test material based on the average indentation size.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the hardness tester comprises an image analyzer programmed to evaluate the one or more images to determine the indentation size on the surface of the test material left behind by the indenter during the hardness testing of the test material.

3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the image data comprises reference material image data comprising one or more images of the hardness bar and test material image data comprising one or more images of the test material.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein the one or images of the hardness bar and one or more images of the test material provide the reference material image data and the test material image data, respectively, during the hardness testing of the test material.

5 . The system of claim 4 , wherein the image analyzer is programmed to analyze the reference material image data to determine a reference indentation size on the reference surface and analyze the test material image data to determine a test indentation size on the test surface left behind by the indenter.

6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the hardness tester further comprises a hardness predictor programmed to predict the hardness of the test material based on the average indentation size and a Brinell chart by comparing the predicted hardness of the test material to a reference hardness.

7 . The system of claim 6 , further comprising a display configured to display the hardness predicted by the hardness predictor.

8 . The system of claim 7 , further comprising a hardness test device and the hardness test device includes the memory, the one or more processors, and the digital MD camera.

9 . The system of claim 8 , wherein the hardness test device further comprises one of a switch or a fingerprint scanner for controlling access to data stored in the memory of the hardness test device.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the hardness predictor is programmed to:

output hardness data with the predicted hardness;

store the hardness data in the memory; and

restrict access to the hardness data stored in the memory to one or more authorized users.

11 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the hardness tester further comprises a hardness predictor programmed to average the reference and test indentation sizes to compute the average indentation size and predict the hardness of the test material based on the average indentation size and a hardness conversion table.

12 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the hardness conversion table is implemented as a hardness conversion database and is stored in the memory, the hardness tester being programmed to query the hardness conversion database using the determined indentation size to predict the hardness of the test material.

13 . A method for determining a hardness of a test material, the method comprising:

performing the hardness test by forming a reference indentation on a reference surface of a reference material and simultaneously forming a test indentation on a test surface of the test material;

imaging, using a digital micro-dimension (DM) camera, the reference and test materials to capture the formed indentations on the reference and test surfaces, and one or more features of the formed indentations including graininess;

generating, using the DM camera, image data comprising one or more images of the formed reference and test indentations on the respective reference and test surfaces;

receiving, using a hardness test device, the image data;

determining, using the hardness test device, a size for each of the reference and test indentations of the reference and test surfaces by analyzing the image data;

computing, using a hardness predictor of the hardness test device, an average indentation size based on the determined sizes of the reference and test indentations;

querying, using the hardness test device, a hardness conversion database stored in memory of the hardness test device using the computed average indentation size; and

predicting, using the hardness test device, a hardness of the test material based on results of querying the hardness conversion database.

14 . The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

storing the predicted hardness of the test material in memory of the hardness test device as hardness test data; and

restricting access to the stored hardness test data in the memory to one or more authorized users.

15 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising:

receiving, at the hardness test, a request to access the stored hardness test data in the memory; and

one of granting or denying the request based on authorized user data stored in the memory for the one or more authorized users.

16 . The method of claim 13 , wherein simultaneous hardness testing of the reference and test material is performed using a single indenter to mitigate anisotropy effects across the reference and test materials.