A tool designed for determining material resistance to indentation or scratching employs established scales like Rockwell, Brinell, or Vickers. For example, such a tool might accept input parameters like indentation depth and applied force to output a hardness value. This facilitates comparisons across materials and aids in appropriate material selection for specific applications.
Evaluating this resistance is critical for ensuring product durability, predicting wear and tear, and informing design choices. Historically, assessing this property relied on subjective methods. Modern computational tools offer enhanced accuracy and repeatability, contributing significantly to fields like materials science and engineering. They are indispensable for quality control in manufacturing processes and research and development of new materials.