Weightings on the Propagation of Errors in the Vickers Hardness Parameters

It is known that the value of an experimental quantity is considered to be adequately determined when there is an indication of its respective error (or uncertainty); otherwise, it is not possible to know at which level of precision it is being working. The most common method to evaluate the measurement uncertainty is the Guide to the expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM), based on the Law of Propagation of Uncertainty (LPU), which in physics sciences is known as Law of Propagation of Errors (LPE). This work presents a theoretical evaluation of the parameters that influence the Vickers hardness (HV) error obtained by the error propagation method. Vickers indentations were performed on soda–lime–silica glasses to compare the results of descriptive statistics with the error by propagating errors. In addition, Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS) were performed and validated by the experimental data. It can be said that the error model proved to be more accurate than the conventional approach; in other words, the descriptive statistic overestimates the uncertainty value of the Vickers hardness. Comparing the model results for the error propagation in HV with the MCS, it can be said that the MCS method was validated by the experimental results and, therefore, it is recommended to use the error propagation to evaluate the uncertainty of Vickers hardness.