Products for Impact Testing

Impact Tests on Plastics and Metals—with ZwickRoell Your Tests are in Compliance with the Standards!

Impact tests are short-term tests, which provide information on the failure behavior of materials or components subjected to rapid loads and at varying temperatures. All materials are used on a daily basis with fluctuating temperatures. Since the fracture behavior also depends on the temperature, materials are often tested in the entire operating temperature range, indicating at which temperature and to what extent a material becomes brittle.

Instruments for Impact Testing: Pendulums and Drop weight Testers

Impact testing has become firmly established in materials and components testing. The properties determined are part of basic material characterization. ZwickRoell has been delivering quality impact testing systems for years. Our product line includes pendulum impact testers for metals and plastics, drop weight testers with an energy range of only a few joules to 100,000 joules, as well as high-speed testing machines.

The energy range spans from 5.5 joules (pendulum impact testers) to 100,000 joules (drop weight testers).
Our impact testers are also available in instrumented versions.
For temperature conditioning of specimens ZwickRoell offers a temperature conditioning box and magazine. Reliable test results start with precise specimen preparation, and ZwickRoell offers solutions for standard-compliant testing.
For particularly economical and reliable testing, ZwickRoell offers a variety of automated solutions for impact testing.

Learn more about the various options.

Pendulum impact testers up to 750 joules

Drop weight testers up to 20,000 joules

Rebound resilience testers

Impact tests on plastics

Impact tests on plastics – non-instrumented

There are ISO product, method, and instrument standards for impact tests with pendulum impact testers.

Product and method standards describe how specimens are taken from a variety of materials and tested. Alternatively they describe a test method for a product or material group.

Instrument standards describe how test instruments are designed. They specify the technical data and their tolerances and define how testing instruments should be verified.

While our customers mainly rely on product standards, as a manufacturer of instruments ZwickRoell is bound by both product standards (for the test sequence) and instrument standards (for the technical design of the test instrument). Both groups of standards are therefore listed below.

As a rule, ASTM standards do not differentiate between product, method, or instrument standards.

Impact tests on plastics – instrumented

The following characteristics are determined in instrumented Charpy tests to ISO 179-2:

Maximum force
deflection at maximum force
energy up to maximum force
deflection at break
energy at break

Impact tests on elastomers and foam

The objective of tests on elastomers and foams is the straightforward and fast measurement of material elasticity.

One material that is up to 100% elastic stores supplied energy and releases it at the moment the force is no longer applied. In contrast, material that is up to 100% plastic absorbs supplied energy completely.

These characteristics are used to measure rebound resilience:

A disk-shaped specimen is clamped to a massive block. A pendulum hits the specimen and supplies energy through the hit. The elastic part of the specimen saves the energy (the pendulum rests for a moment) and then returns the energy to the pendulum. The pendulum is accelerated in the opposite direction and swings back.

Once it reaches its resting position after returning, the backward swing angle is measured. Using the angle, the elastic energy that the specimen returned to the pendulum is calculated.

Impact tests on metals

For impact tests on metals ASTM E23 permits a velocity which can also be complied with using the HIT50P. Special accessories are required for this.

Type of test	Product/ method standard	Initial potential energy [J]	Velocity [m/s]	Upper measurement limit in % of the rated initial potential energy	Instrument standard
Charpy	ISO 148-1	NS	5 to 5.5	80 %	ISO 148-2 JIS B 7722
	EN 2003-1	300 (others are permitted)	5 to 5.5	NS	EN 2003-3 identical to BS 131-4 1972
	ASTM E23	NS	3 to 6:	80%¹	None
	ASTM E436	>2700	>4.88	NS	none
	old standard DIN 50115	≤ 5.5 >5.5 to 50 >50 to 750	2.8 to 3.1 3.6 to 4 5 to 5.5	80 %	ISO 148-2 JIS B 7722
Izod	EN 2003-2	NS	3.5 ± 0.5	NS	EN 2003-3 identical to BS 131-4 1972
Izod	ASTM E23	NS	3 to 6	80 %	none

NS = not specified

Measured values can be valid in some cases even if limit is exceeded

Type of test	Product/ method standard	F-range [kN]	Velocity [m/s]	Measurem. uncertainty Force [% Fact]	Transfer frequency min. [kHz]	Instrument standard	Lower measurement limit	Upper measurement limit as % of nominal energy capacity	Initial potential energy [J]
Charpy	ISO 14556	1 (for Fa) to 40 (for Fm)	5 to 5.5	1 % In the F-range 10 to 100 % Recommended for tup alone	100 (rise time: 3.5 µs)	EN 10045-2 ISO 148-2 JIS B 7722	NS	80 %	NS

NS = not specified