This section provides an overview for hardness testers as well as their applications and principles. Also, please take a look at the list of 12 hardness tester manufacturers and their company rankings. Here are the top-ranked hardness tester companies as of November, 2024: 1.NextGen Material Testing, Inc., 2.Struers, 3.Dilip Tools & Instruments.
Table of Contents
A hardness tester is a device used to measure the hardness of materials, typically metals, by assessing their resistance to deformation. Hardness reference specimens, or standard specimens, play a crucial role in ensuring the accuracy of these measurements. They are test pieces with known hardness values used to calibrate and verify the performance of hardness testers.
Hardness testing is critical in the metal manufacturing process, particularly in evaluating the effectiveness of heat treatments. It serves as a non-destructive quality control measure, offering insights into material properties such as tensile strength without the need for more costly and time-consuming tests. Hardness tests are essential for ensuring the desired mechanical properties in heat-treated parts and other components requiring specific hardness levels.
To maintain reliability, hardness testers must exhibit minimal hardness variation and remain stable over time. Materials like SKS3, SK85, C2600P, S10C, and S45C are commonly used.
Hardness testers offer a practical and economical alternative to direct strength tests in confirming material qualities. It is particularly useful for surface hardness measurements, where the minor marks left by the test can be easily removed in subsequent machining processes. Hardness is typically measured by the size of an indentation left by a defined indenter under a specific load, with results calibrated against known reference values.
While hardness testers provide a range rather than an absolute value of hardness, they are indispensable for calibrating testers to ensure consistent and accurate measurements. These specimens undergo thorough heat treatment to prevent changes in hardness over time, although repeated use near previous indentations is discouraged to avoid work-hardening effects. The lifespan of a hardness tester is limited by the number of tests it can undergo before affecting its reliability.
*Including some distributors, etc.
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WESTport Corporation., founded in West Islip, New York in 1989 is a manufacturer of Precision Fixed Limit Gages used in Aviation and Aerospace industry. The company's product portfolio includes Thread Plug and Thread Ring Gages, Cylindrical Plug and Ring Gages, Custom Design and Build Gages, ACME Gages, and Air Gages. They provide services such as Onsite Services, Gage Repair, and Hardness Testing of products. The company serves industries such as Oil and Gas, Aerospace and Defense, Automotive and Transportation, Construction, and Power Generation.
Sun-Tec Corporation is a manufacturer and supplier of testing equipment and solutions that was established in 1931 and is headquartered in Novi, Michigan, USA. The company produces a wide range of testing equipment, including hardness testers, tensile testers, and impact testers. Its products, such as Rockwell Hardness Testers, Brinell Hardness Testers, and Charpy Impact Testers, are used by a number of industries, as diverse as manufacturing, aerospace, and automotive industries. The company also provides a range of services, including custom manufacturing, calibration, and repair.
KING Tester Corporation has been a manufacturer of Hardness Testing Equipment since 1936 in Pennsylvania. The company designs Brinell Hardness Testers which are available as Portable Brinell Tester, Chain Adapter, Tester Bases, and Test Heads, along with Rockwell testers, handheld and automatic reading Scopes, and some specialty products like In Line, and TWIN X Automatic Hardness Tester, and CaseRock Series that helps determine the hardness of a metal throughout the case in a reduced time frame. These products help Construction, Heat Treating, Manufacturing, Aerospace, Foundries, and many other industries.
HAHN+KOLB Werkzeuge GmbH is a manufacturer of tools and machines established in 1898 as a subsidiary of Germany's Würth Group and based in Ludwigsburg, Germany. The company offers measuring equipment and instruments for accurate measurement in industrial operations, machining tools for precision cutting or shaping procedures, and handling systems as well as equipment for material handling and warehouse logistics. It also offers system customization, personnel training, and maintenance services. The company serves clients in the industrial manufacturing, aerospace, and automotive sectors.
Struers is a manufacturer of materialographic equipment and consumables based in France since 1875. The company designs equipment used for cutting, mounting, grinding, polishing, and verifying materials for enhancing and streamlining the processes of sample preparation, from manufacturing and quality assurance to failure investigation and research. There are cut-off machines such as Magnutom-5000, Mounting accessories, machines, and consumables along with automated solutions for grinding and polishing. These products cater to automobile and airplane manufacturers including mobile phone producers and aerospace sectors.
ZwickRoell Corporation, founded in 1935 and based in Ulm, Germany, is a global supplier of static materials testing machines. Its offerings include static materials testing machines, dynamic and fatigue testing machines, and automated testing systems, used in research and development, and quality assurance across various industries. Its machines run approximately 80,000,000 materials and component tests annually. The company operates a calibration laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 and is certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.
Mitutoyo Europe GmbH, established in 1934 and based in Europe, is a supplier of metrology and precision measuring equipment. The company is an ISO 9001:2015 certified supplier that supplies to different industries, including aerospace, automotive, medical, and electronics. Various measuring equipment procured and supplied to customers globally are calipers, micrometers, portable hardness testers as well as DRO linear scales and counters. The company also procures optical measuring devices such as profile projectors, measuring microscopes, and coordinate measuring machines including CMM probes and enclosures.
MSI-Viking Gage, LLC was founded over 50 years ago and is headquartered in Duncan, South Carolina. MSI-Viking provides manufacturing support to the automotive, aerospace, metals, plastics, medical, energy, food & beverage, and machining industries. MSI-Viking product offerings include 3D scanning systems, 3D additive manufacturing, air gages, bore & hole gages, calipers, CMMs, computed tomography, data collection, depth gages, fixture systems, indicators, laboratory equipment, vision systems, and thread gages among others. Services include calibration, metrology, repair, embedded services, training, and metrology pre-op services.
Ranking as of November 2024
Derivation MethodRank | Company | Click Share |
---|---|---|
1 | NextGen Material Testing, Inc. |
13.6%
|
2 | Struers |
13.6%
|
3 | Dilip Tools & Instruments |
9.1%
|
4 | GeoCorp inc. |
9.1%
|
5 | HAHN+KOLB Werkzeuge GmbH |
9.1%
|
6 | MSI-Viking Gage, LLC |
9.1%
|
7 | Verder Scientific |
9.1%
|
8 | ZwickRoell Corporation |
9.1%
|
9 | Mitutoyo Europe GmbH |
4.5%
|
10 | Sun-Tec Corporation |
4.5%
|
Derivation Method
The ranking is calculated based on the click share within the hardness tester page as of November 2024. Click share is defined as the total number of clicks for all companies during the period divided by the number of clicks for each company.Number of Employees
Newly Established Company
Company with a History
*Including some distributors, etc.
*Including some distributors, etc.
Country | Number of Companies | Share (%) |
---|---|---|
Germany | 4 | 44.4% |
United States of America | 3 | 33.3% |
Denmark | 1 | 11.1% |
Canada | 1 | 11.1% |