Hardness is a material’s quality to withstand localized deformation. It may be especially important when looking for a suitable material for an environment that includes little particles that can induce material wear. Soft materials suffer indentations while hard ones resist any change in shape.

Hardness should be viewed in context with other material properties like strength, elasticity, etc. For example, many hard materials tend to be brittle, limiting their use-cases. The SI unit of hardness is N/mm². The unit Pascal is thus used for hardness, but hardness must not be confused with pressure.

The different types of hardness discussed above have different scales of measurement. For scratch, indentation, and rebound hardness, the measurement methods vary (e.g. Brinell, Rockwell, Knoop, Leeb, and Meyer). As the units are derived from these measurement methods, they are not suitable for direct comparison.

However, you can always use a conversion table for comparing the Rockwell (B & C), Vickers and Brinell values. The commonly used units for hardness measurement are:

• Brinell Hardness Number (HB)
• Vickers hardness number (HV)
• Rockwell hardness number (HRA, HRB, HRC, etc.)
• Leeb hardness value (HLD, HLS, HLE, etc.)

Minimum measuring unit for NG-1000 – Micro Vickers and Knoop Hardness tester 0.01μm.

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