ASTM E-18 Annex A3 - Ball and Diamond Indenters Requirements

[dbulak]

For those of us who use rockwell testers, how are you handling the requirement that all ball and diamond indenters must now meet Annex A3 requirements? Have you bought new indenters? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Phiobi]

We switched to HB

[dbulak]

I don't get it. What is HB?

[Phiobi]

We switch to Brinell - Made my life easier as we could use a hand held machine to test Hardness Brinell (HB) instead of trying to use the HRE scale.

[dbulak]

I see that it was a good decision for you. However, we still need to use the "T" and "N" scale as well as "C" scales.

[dbulak]

I will re-ask the question and hope some one can help answer my original question. The new ASTM E-18-08b now calls for all diamond and ball indenters to have a serial number indicating that they were made according to the new standard specifications. Wlison (Instron) says that you can still use old indenter if they are verified and recertified. Is this what other people are doing or have done? Any comments would be appreciated.

[Kevin H]

Hello, dbulak wrt your question, we're currently ignoring the requirement. Our internal lab isn't certfied to ISO 17025 and currently no one reviews ASTM standard test methods on an annual basis to check for changes. This wouldn't have flown at my prior employer, AKSteel, but is acceptable here.

Heck, we don't even do the 3 indentations to check RBW on a daily basis - 1 is "good enough", 3 would use up blocks too quickly.

Having seen your post, and done a quick check of ASTM E18 and of our current indenters, what we should do is replace all of them with correctly certified ones - it's what I would have done at AK, of course I also checked our relevant ASTM standards annually for changes.

Being prompted by your quote, I'll probably check with technical management to see if they want to comply with the updated requirement.

[dbulak]

I was told that in order to have rockwell testers calibrated to ASTM E18-08b, the indenters aalso have be certified. Has anyone come across the same situation?