The Charpy Pendulum is among the instruments used in the purely mechanical activities of the early years of Istituto Motori.
The pendulum present in the institute is a Cesare Galbadini - Gallarate, dating back to the years 1930-1950.
The Charpy pendulum (from the creator Georges Augustin Albert Charpy) is a standardized machine used for impact resilience testing, by which the energy necessary to break a specimen (also standardized) through an impact is determined.
The instrument is composed of a rod with a hinge fixed to the base on one side, and a mallet on the other. To ensure that the measurement is not distorted by the friction of the air and the hinge, the latter has significantly reduced dimensions, while the bat has an aerodynamic shape and it is equipped with an interchangeable blade with a standardized profile. However, such a solution involves a further problem: the small hinge does not support the impact developed by the mallet in hitting the specimen, if the c in gas operation with spark ignition in stoichiometric fuel conditions, the same performance as the diesel version an aerodynamic shape, is designed to have the impact point below the centre of gravity, in order to guarantee the functionality of the hinge. This test is widely performed because the values obtained allow classification (in particular steels) based on the different degree of fragility, a very important condition for the purposes of choosing materials intended for the construction of structures, mechanical parts, containers of liquids at low temperature, etc. for which impact stresses are foreseeable.