What aspect of a material does hardness testing often help infer?

Hardness testing is primarily used to assess the mechanical properties of a material. Specifically, it provides insights into a material's strength, ductility, and wear resistance. The hardness of a material is often correlated with its ability to withstand deformation and stress, making it an important indicator of how it will behave under mechanical loads.

By measuring hardness, one can infer vital information regarding how the material will perform in applications that involve stress, abrasion, and impact. For instance, harder materials generally indicate a greater ability to resist deformation under load, which is a key aspect of their mechanical behavior.

While hardness may have some indirect correlations with other properties—such as toughness or the ability to resist corrosion—it is primarily utilized as a metric for evaluating mechanical properties. Thus, the most relevant inference drawn from hardness testing is related to the material's performance characteristics in a mechanical context.