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Johan August Brinell was a Swedish engineer in the early 1900's. He proposed the Brinell scale in 1900. His theory was the first hardness test created in engineering and metallurgy. Basically, the Brinell Scale will tell you the hardness of materials such as how they penetrate the material. The easiest way to explain Brinell Hardness Testing is to look at water hardness.

In Brinell hardness testing, you have equipment that will test how hard the water is. Even though water is liquid there are certain minerals contained within it that could make the water hard, normal, or soft. Hard water can create soap scum, blockages in the pipe, and even damage your skin. Hard water has to be softened, so using the Brinell hardness testing procedure will show you how many hard minerals can be found within. The test will look for the concentration of calcium and magnesium in the water and then rate it based on the Brinell scale.

There is an equation to use for Brinell hardness testing. This equation will ask for the applied force, diameter of the indenter, and diameter of the indention. It will ultimately tell us the tensile strength of products as well. To offer another example we can look at Great White Shark research. In this case, Brinell hardness testing is looking for how strong a shark bite is. A piece of equipment would be placed in the water for the shark to bite. Sensors would read the information needed for the equation, and then the mathematical formula would tell us the results.

The Brinell hardness testing has given us standard numbers regarding certain materials. These numbers are standard in the Brinell hardness testing to tell us what category a material might fit in.

Softwood for instance is 1.6 HBS whereas Hardwood is 2.6 to 7 HBS on the Brinell scale. These calculations were found with the Brinell hardness testing and equation. One can do a test and then read the scale to find out where their product fits and whether it is within regulations. Glass, steel, and other objects have certain hardness numbers which tells us what the material is.