Measuring Metal Quality

The military use a permeability meter to check metals and welds etc...

I have one in my workshop!!

There are a number of welding tests including visual inspection, radiographic inspection and iron filing testing. See some of these sites.

For the metal itself, there are hardness tests, tensile tests and Charpy Notch Toughness tests and probably a few dozen others which don't come to mind immediately.

The metal quality (whatever base metal or weld metal) from mechanical point of view is measured by and depends on its main Mechanical Properties, such as:

· Strength (tensile, compressive & shear)

· Hardness

· Ductility (elongation)

In addition to : Toughness (Area under Stress-Strain Curve), and Elasticity (Modulus of elasticity E, equal to slope of Stress-Strain Curve at elastic portion).