| Only a short time ago, a high-tech organization based in southern Germany that has been involved in the development and production of top-quality lightweight alloy wheels for over 30 years purchased one of our latest developments: our new ZHU250 Universal Hardness Tester.
The company, which not only is active in racing – supplying its products to Formula 1 stalls, among others – but also volume produces its wheels for conventional passenger cars is a key global player in the market. The task was to test the hardness of the rims as well as their parts and components manufactured in the enterprise's new production facilities in the Far East and China. Testing was to be done under production conditions and had to meet the strictest requirements with respect to exactness.
The ZHU250 universal hardness tester is geared for standards-compliant hardness testing according to Vickers, Brinell, and Rockwell, plus ball-pressure hardness testing to max. 250 kg and is characterized by its intuitive operating concept. The test programs are quick and easy to configure, being largely self-explanatory for both the test bench engineer and the user at the machine. All the settings and parameters are provided in the several languages with a representation that is simple to understand.
Due to the manifold test jobs to be performed, the customer placed highest requirements on the versatility of the testing machine. The Zwick hardness tester was well able to meet these demands primarily due to its large working space (300 x 250 mm). Particularly worth mentioning is that the indentations are measured optically parallaxis- and error-free using a measurement line concept integrated into the focusing screen. This approach ensures high reproducibility of the test results.
With the Zwick ZHU250, for the first time ever a hardness testing machine utilizing the current contents of the DIN EN ISO 18265 standard to enable the revaluation of hardness values has come out on the market. Now, in addition to the conventional tables thus far employed for steels and low-alloy steels and steel castings, the user is provided with standards-compliant revaluation options for materials made from aluminum and copper. |
