Measuring mechanical properties of plasma-sprayed alumina coatings by nanoindentation technique

AISI 1020 steel substrate is coated with alumina as feedstock material using plasma spraying process in order to correlate the microstructural features with mechanical properties of coating. The present work focuses on the effects of microstructural inhomogeneity on mechanical properties of alumina coating through nanoindentation technique. Young's modulus and hardness of the alumina coating are analytically evaluated. Indentation stress-strain curves are generated from the experimentally obtained load-displacement curves to characterise the mechanical properties of the coating. The results have shown large variation in hardness and Young's modulus of alumina due to microstructural inhomogeneity of the coating.