Determination of plastic properties of metals by instrumented indentation using different sharp indenters

Indentation testing is a common method to assess the mechanical properties of materials near their surface. The elasto-plastic properties may be determined from the force penetration curves measured in indentation using inverse methods. In this spirit, Dao et al. [1] (Acta Materialia, 49, 2001) have established a forward and a reverse analysis for engineering metals using the equivalent conical indenter of the Berkovich and the Vickers pyramids, which has an included angle theta of 70.3degrees. Extending Dao's approach, we studied, based on a finite element analysis on elasto-plastic materials, the influence of the included angle of conical indenters (theta = 70.3, 60, 50 and 42.3degrees) and the friction coefficient on the force penetration curves. Based on this analysis, we suggest a more general method for determining the plastic properties of metals. The mechanical behaviour is modeled with the Young's modulus, E, the yield strength, sigma(y), and the strain hardening exponent, n. We have shown that friction has a significant effect on the normal force measured on tips having included angles lower or equal to 50degrees. We have constructed, for each indenter geometry, a dimensionless function relating the characteristic parameters of the loading curve in indentation to the elasto-plastic parameters of metals. These functions have been generalized for any included angle. We show that the use of a second indenter with an included angle lower than theta = 70.3degrees allows us to determine the strain hardening exponent with greater accuracy. Moreover, the sharper the indenter, the better the accuracy. (C) 2003 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.