Conical indentation of strain-hardening solids

Conical indentation of strain hardening solids is examined within the spherical cavity expansion simulation pattern in finite strain plasticity. Analysis accounts for elastic compressibility and arbitrary strain hardening. Unlike existing studies of indentation processes that assume a definite yield point, the present formulation applies also to smooth elastoplastic transition. Approximate hardness formulae are derived, at different levels of accuracy, and compared with available finite element calculations. Effects of pile-up, or sink-in, and external friction have been ignored. It is suggested that test data over a range of cone angles can be used to reconstruct the axial stress–strain curve. The relation between cavitation and conical indentation is discussed. It is shown that the cylindrical Tresca cavitation yield stress serves as a natural scaling stress in estimating hardness of strain hardening solids.     

Hardness-packing density scaling relations for cohesive-frictional porous materials

Recent progress in instrumented nanoindentation makes it possible today to test in situ phase properties and structures of porous materials that cannot be recapitulated ex situ in bulk form. But it requires a rigorous indentation analysis to translate indentation data into meaningful mechanical properties. This paper reports the development and implementation of a multi-scale indentation analysis based on limit analysis, for the assessment of strength properties of cohesive-frictional porous materials from hardness measurements. Based on the separation-of-scale condition, we implement an elliptical strength criterion which results from the nonlinear homogenization of the strength properties of the constituents (cohesion and friction), the porosity and the microstructure, into a computational yield design approach to indentation analysis. We identify the resulting upper bound problem as a second-order conical optimization problem, for which advanced optimization algorithms became recently available. The upper bound yield design solutions are benchmarked against solutions from comprehensive elastoplastic contact mechanics finite element solutions and lower bound solutions. Furthermore, from a detailed parameter study based on intensive computational simulations, we identify characteristic hardness-packing density scaling relations for cohesive-frictional porous materials. These scaling relations which are developed for two pore-morphologies, a matrix-pore morphology and a polycrystal (perfect disordered) morphology, are most suitable for the reverse analysis of the strength parameters of cohesive-frictional solids from indentation hardness measurements.     

The plastic zone size in indentation experiments: The analogy with the expansion of a spherical cavity

This paper provides in-depth examinations of the well-known analogy between indentation experiments and the expansion of a spherical cavity. Closed-form solutions are derived for the extension of the plastic zone in perfectly plastic and strain hardening solids. The theoretical analysis takes into account the role of elastic and plastic deformations in the overall contact response, leading to accurate solutions for cavity inflation. Presently proposed analogy is based on comprehensive finite element simulations of conical, spherical and pyramidal indentation, which allow us to find a correspondence between the parameters describing the contact response and those in expanding cavity formulations. Such parametrical identification has the advantage to hold true both in expanding cavity formulations for perfectly plastic solids and in those derived herein for strain hardening solids. Attention is given to the assessment of the plastic zone along the indented surface, as well as to quantify the influence of further plastic flow induced upon load removal on the plastic zone size.     

Deformation of plastically compressible hardening-softening-hardening solids

Motivated by a model of the response of vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) pillars in uniaxial compression, we consider the deformation of a class of compressible elastic-viscoplastic solids with a hardening-softening-hardening variation of flow strength with plastic strain. In previous work (Hutchens et al. 2011) a constitutive relation was presented and used to model the response of VACNT pillars in axisymmetric compression. Subsequently, it was found that due to a programming error the constitutive relation presented in the paper (Hutchens et al. 2011) was not the one actually implemented. In particular, the plastic flow rule actually used did not satisfy plastic normality. Here, we present the constitutive formulation actually implemented in the previous work (Hutchens et al. 2011). Dynamic, finite deformation, finite element calculations are carried out for uniaxial compression, uniaxial tension and for indentation of a "half-space" by a conical indenter tip. A sequential buckling-like deformation mode is found in com- pression when there is plastic non-normality and hardening-softening-hardening. The same material characterization gives rise to a Lüders band-like deformation mode in ten- sion. When there is a deformation mode with a sharp front along mesh boundaries, the overall stress-strain response contains high frequency oscillations that are a mesh artifact. The responses of non-softening solids are also analyzed and their overall stress-strain behavior and deformationmodes are compared with those of hardening-softening- hardening solids. We find that indentation with a sharp in- denter tip gives a qualitatively equivalent response for hardening and hardening-softening-hardening solids.     

Polymer indentation: Numerical analysis and comparison with a spherical cavity model

Three dimensional analyses of indentation of a polymer by a rigid indenter are carried out. The polymer is characterized by a finite strain elastic-viscoplastic constitutive relation and the calculations are carried out with a dynamic finite element program used to simulate quasi-static behavior. Two types of indenter are considered; a conical indenter and a pyramidal indenter. For each indenter type, different values of the sharpness of the indenter are considered and two rates of indentation are analyzed. Significant sink-in is found to occur in all cases considered. The amount of sink-in is found to be smaller for sharper indenters. The calculated values of both the nominal and true hardness do not differ significantly for the two indenter shapes. An expanding spherical cavity model is also considered and the predictions of this model are compared with the finite element results for various indenter shapes and indentation rates. The spherical cavity model is found to give fairly good agreement with the predictions of the finite element analyses for the nominal polymer hardness for both indenter shapes.     

Material characterization based on dual indenters

Extensive large strain-large deformation finite element analyses were carried out to investigate the response of elasto-plastic materials obeying power law-strain hardening during the loading and unloading process of instrumented indentation with conical indenters of different apex angles. The relationships between the characteristics of the indentation load–displacement curves and the elasto-plastic material properties were computationally established. A reverse analysis algorithm based on load–displacement curves obtained from dual indenters was presented. It was demonstrated that the proposed reverse analysis algorithm can uniquely recover the elasto-plastic material properties from the load–displacement curves of two conical indenters with different apex angles. The numerical results obtained are in good agreement with published values.     

Size effects in the conical indentation of an elasto-plastic solid

The size effect in conical indentation of an elasto-plastic solid is predicted via the Fleck and Willis formulation of strain gradient plasticity (Fleck, N.A. and Willis, J.R., 2009, A mathematical basis for strain gradient plasticity theory. Part II: tensorial plastic multiplier, J. Mech. Phys. Solids, 57, 1045–1057). The rate-dependent formulation is implemented numerically and the full-field indentation problem is analyzed via finite element calculations, for both ideally plastic behavior and dissipative hardening. The isotropic strain-gradient theory involves three material length scales, and the relative significance of these length scales upon the degree of size effect is assessed. Indentation maps are generated to summarize the sensitivity of indentation hardness to indent size, indenter geometry and material properties (such as yield strain and strain hardening index). The finite element model is also used to evaluate the pertinence of the Johnson cavity expansion model and of the Nix–Gao model, which have been extensively used to predict size effects in indentation hardness.     

A computational study on the instrumented sharp indentations with dual indenters

Finite element analysis was performed to investigate the indentation response of elasto-plastic solids for conical indenters of half included angles of 60° and 70.3°. The interdependence indentation parameters resulting from a single indentation load–depth curve is considered. Regarding dimensional analysis, several dimensionless relationships are constructed as functions of the reduced elastic modulus-loading curvature ratio E¹/C and the strain hardening exponent n. Further, the duality between corresponding parameters with dual indenters is explored. Finally, a new method based on dual indenters is proposed to extract the strain hardening exponent and the reduced elastic modulus of an indented material. The accuracy of this method is verified and discussed with experimental data from the literature and representative materials.     

Improved reverse analysis for material characterization with dual sharp indenters

It was illustrated by the author in the previous work that combinations between material properties and indentation parameters can be used as mixed parameters in dimensionless functions to capture the indentation response of materials to single and dual sharp indenters. These issues are further extended in the present study. A parametric finite element analysis was performed to investigate the conical indentation response of elasto-plastic solids. Frictional effects are studied. Conical indenters of half-included angles from 50° to 88° are considered to examine several fundamental features of instrumented sharp indentation within the frame work of limit analysis. Regarding dimensional analysis, it is found that a Taylor series expansion according to the elastic indentation work-total indentation work ratio W_e/W_t can be used to improve dimensionless functions. Within this context, a new set of dimensionless functions is explicitly constructed for hardness and indentation parameters of single and dual indenters. Based on formulated functions, a reverse analysis with dual sharp indenters, which was previously proposed by the author, is improved to extract mechanical properties of materials.     

Analysis of spherical indentation of superelastic shape memory alloys

Dimensional analysis and the finite element method are applied in this paper to study spherical indentation of superelastic shape memory alloys. The scaling relationships derived from dimensional analysis bridge the indentation response and the mechanical properties of a superelastic shape memory alloy. Several key variables of a superelastic indentation curve are revealed and examined. We prove that the bifurcation force in a superelastic indentation curve only relies on the forward transformation stress and the elastic properties of the initial austenite; and the return force in a superelastic indentation curve only relies on the reverse transformation stress and the elastic properties of the initial austenite. Furthermore, the dimensionless functions to determine the bifurcation force and the return force are proved to be identical. These results not only enhance our understanding of spherical indentation of superelastic shape memory alloys, but also provide the theoretical basis for developing a practicable method to calibrate the mechanical properties of a superelastic material from the spherical indentation test.     

On establishing elastic–plastic properties of a sphere by indentation testing

Instrumented indentation is a popular technique for determining mechanical properties of materials. Currently, the evaluation techniques of instrumented indentation are mostly limited to a flat substrate being indented by various shaped indenters (e.g., conical or spherical). This work investigates the possibility of extending instrumented indentation to non-flat surfaces. To this end, conical indentation of a sphere is investigated where two methodologies for establishing mechanical properties are explored. In the first approach, a semi-analytical approach is employed to determine the elastic modulus of the sphere utilizing the elastic unloading response (the “unloading slope”). In the second method, reverse analysis based on finite element analysis is used, where non-dimensional characteristic functions derived from the force–displacement response are utilized to determine the elastic modulus and yield strength. To investigate the accuracies of the proposed methodologies, selected numerical experiments have been performed and excellent agreement was obtained.     

Effects of large deformation and material nonlinearity on spherical indentation of hyperelastic soft materials

Up to now, the indentation of hyperelastic soft materials has not been completely understood. In this paper, the spherical indentation on hyperelastic soft solids was systematically investigated through theoretical analysis and finite element method (FEM). The validation and application of the Hertzian load-displacement relation for indentation of hyperelastic soft materials were clarified, the effects of large deformation and material nonlinearity on spherical indentation of hyperelastic soft materials were analyzed and discussed. It was found that the complicated indentation behaviors of hyperelastic soft solids mainly depended on the coupling interactions of large deformation and material nonlinearity. Besides, we proposed two new nonlinear elastic contact models to separate the effects of large deformation and material nonlinearity on spherical indentation responses of hyperelastic soft solids. Our efforts might help to enhance the understanding of hyperelastic indentation problems and provided necessary instructions for the mechanical characterization of hyperelastic soft materials.     

Finite element study for conical indentation of elastoplastic micropolar material

Numerous experiments have repetitively shown that the material behavior presents effective size dependent mechanical properties at scales of microns or submicrons. In this paper, the size dependent behavior of micropolar theory under conical indentation is studied for different indentation depths and micropolar material parameters. To illustrate the effectiveness of the micropolar theory in predicting the indentation size effect (ISE), an axisymmetric finite element model has been developed for elastoplastic contact analysis of the micropolar materials based on the parametric virtual principle. It is shown that the micropolar parameters contribute to describe the characteristic of ISE at different scales, where the material length scale regulates the rate of hardness change at large indentation depth and the value of micropolar shear module restrains the upper limit of hardness at low indentation depth. The simulation results showed that the indentation loads increase as the result of increased material length scale at any indentation depth, however, the rate of increase is higher for lower indentation depth, relative to conventional continuum. The numerical results are presented for perfectly sharp and rounded tip conical indentations of magnesium oxide and compared with the experimental data for hardness coming from the open literature. It is shown that the satisfactory agreement between the experimental data and the numerical results is obtained, and the better correlation is achieved for the rounded tip indentation compared to the sharp indentation.     

Hertz contact at finite friction and arbitrary profiles

Axisymmetric contact at finite Coulomb friction and arbitrary profiles is examined analytically and numerically for dissimilar linear elastic solids. Invariance and generality are aimed at and an incremental procedure is developed resulting in a reduced benchmark problem corresponding to a rigid flat indentation of an elastic half-space. The reduced problem, being independent of loading and contact region, was solved by a finite element method based on a stationary contact contour and characterized by high accuracy. Subsequently, a tailored cumulative superposition procedure was developed to resolve the original problem to determine global and local field values. Save for the influence of the coefficients of friction and contraction ratio, it is shown that at partial slip the evolving relative stick-slip contour is independent of any convex and smooth contact profile at monotonic loading. For flat and conical profiles with rounded edges and apices, results are illustrated for relations between force, depth and contact contours together with surface stress distributions. The solution for dissimilar solids in a full space is transformed to a half-space problem and solved for a combination of material parameters in order to first determine interface traction distributions. Subsequently, full field values for the two solids were computed individually. In order to predict initiation of fracture and plastic flow, results are reported for the location and magnitude of maximum tensile stress and effective stress, respectively, for a range of geometrical and material parameters. In two illustrations, predicted results are compared with experimental findings related to initiation of brittle fracture and load-depth relations at nanoindentation.     

The frictional sliding response of elasto-plastic materials in contact with a conical indenter

Over the past decade, many computational studies have explored the mechanics of normal indentation. Quantitative relationships have been well established between the load–displacement hysteresis response and material properties. By contrast, very few studies have investigated broad quantitative aspects of the effects of material properties, especially plastic deformation characteristics, on the frictional sliding response of metals and alloys. The response to instrumented, depth-sensing frictional sliding, hereafter referred to as a scratch test, could potentially be used for material characterization. In addition, it could reproduce a basic tribological event, such as asperity contact and deformation, at different length scales for the multi-scale modeling of wear processes. For these reasons, a comprehensive study was undertaken to investigate the effect of elasto-plastic properties, such as flow strength and strain hardening, on the response to steady-state frictional sliding. Dimensional analysis was used to define scaling variables and universal functions. The dependence of these functions on material properties was assessed through a detailed parametric study using the finite element method. The strain hardening exponent was found to have a greater influence on the scratch hardness and the pile-up height during frictional sliding than observed in frictionless normal indentation. When normalized by the penetration depth, the pile-up height can be up to three times larger in frictional sliding than in normal indentation. Furthermore, in contrast to normal indentation, sink-in is not observed during frictional sliding over the wide range of material properties examined. Finally, friction between indenter and indented material was introduced in the finite element model, and quantitative relationships were also established for the limited effects of plastic strain hardening and yield strength on the overall friction coefficient. Aspects of the predictions of computational simulations were compared with experiments on carefully selected metallic systems in which the plastic properties were systematically controlled. The level of accuracy of the predicted frictional response is also assessed by recourse to the finite element method and by comparison with experiment.     

Two new expanding cavity models for indentation deformations of elastic strain-hardening materials

Two expanding cavity models (ECMs) are developed for describing indentation deformations of elastic power-law hardening and elastic linear-hardening materials. The derivations are based on two elastic–plastic solutions for internally pressurized thick-walled spherical shells of strain-hardening materials. Closed-form formulas are provided for both conical and spherical indentations, which explicitly show that for a given indenter geometry indentation hardness depends on Young’s modulus, yield stress and strain-hardening index of the indented material. The two new models reduce to Johnson’s ECM for elastic-perfectly plastic materials when the strain-hardening effect is not considered. The sample numerical results obtained using the two newly developed models reveal that the indentation hardness increases with the Young’s modulus and strain-hardening level of the indented material. For conical indentations the values of the indentation hardness are found to depend on the sharpness of the indenter: the sharper the indenter, the larger the hardness. For spherical indentations it is shown that the hardness is significantly affected by the strain-hardening level when the indented material is stiff (i.e., with a large ratio of Young’s modulus to yield stress) and/or the indentation depth is large. When the indentation depth is small such that little or no plastic deformation is induced by the spherical indenter, the hardness appears to be independent of the strain-hardening level. These predicted trends for spherical indentations are in fairly good agreement with the recent finite element results of Park and Pharr.     

基于能量密度等效的超弹性压入模型与双压试验方法

针对超弹性材料压入问题, 本文基于能量密度中值等效原理, 提出了描述球、平面、锥3类压头独立压入下载荷、深度、压头几何尺寸和Mooney-Rivlin本构关系参数之间关系的半解析超弹性压入模型(semi-theoretical hyperelastic-material indentation model, SHIM), 进而提出了球、平面、锥压入组合的双压试验方法(indentation method due to dual indenters, IMDI). 正向验证表明, 基于系列超弹性材料的本构关系参数, 由SHIM分别预测的球、平面、锥3类压入下的载荷-位移曲线与有限元分析(finite element analysis, FEA)结果之间密切吻合; 反向验证表明, 基于系列超弹性材料的FEA条件本构关系下3类压入的载荷-位移曲线, 由双压试验方法预测的Mooney-Rivlin本构关系与FEA条件本构关系密切吻合. 针对3种超弹性橡胶, 完成了球、平面、锥压入试验, 应用双压试验方法获得的3组Mooney-Rivlin本构关系均与单轴拉伸试验结果吻合良好.      

The role of friction on sharp indentation

Frictional effects on sharp indentation of strain hardening solids are examined in this paper. The results of finite element simulations in a wide range of solids allow us to derive two simplified equations, accounting for the influence of the friction coefficient on hardness. Comparisons between the simulations and instrumented micro-indentation experiments are undertaken to ensure the validity of the former to metallic materials. Quantitative estimates of the role of friction on the development of pileup and sinking-in around the contact boundary are also given in the paper. These results provide a physical insight into the plastic flow features of distinctly different solids brought into contact with sharp indenters. Overall, the investigation shows that the amount of pileup can be used to set the range of validity of the two hardness equations indicated above. Friction has the largest influence on the contact response of solids exhibiting considerable piling-up effects (whose parameter , see text for details), whereas materials developing moderate pileup or sinking-in are less sensitive to friction. Finally, a methodology is devised to assess the influence of the friction coefficient on mechanical properties extracted through indentation experiments.     

Experiments and Material Parameter Identification Using Finite Elements. Uniaxial Tests and Validation Using Instrumented Indentation Tests

In this article, we focus our attention on the relation between instrumented indentation tests and the prediction by means of finite element calculations. To this end, a finite strain viscoplasticity model of Perzyna-type with non-linear isotropic and kinematic hardening is calibrated at experimental data of steel S690QL. A particular concept for conducting uniaxial tensile and compression tests is taken up in order to represent the basic rate-dependent material behavior. In this respect, an algorithmic framework of material parameter identification using finite elements is proposed leading to a two-stage procedure in the case of the underlying rate-dependent constitutive model. On the basis of the termination points of relaxation the rate-independent equilibrium stress state can be identified and all viscous parts of the model are obtained using rate-dependent loading paths. Finally, use is made of finite elements for predicting indentation experiments, which results in a critical view on modeling and parameter identification on the basis of experimental results occurring in instrumented indentation tests.     

区间B样条小波薄壳截锥单元构造

利用区间B样条小波的尺度函数作为有限元插值函数,从轴对称壳的能量泛函出发,由变分原理导出了单元刚度矩阵和载荷列阵,构造了区间B样条小波薄壳截锥单元.区间B样条小波单元同时具有B样条函数数值逼近精度高和多种用于结构分析的变尺度基函数的特点.数值算例表明:与传统截锥单元相比,本文构造的小波单元具有求解精度高、单元数量和自由度少等优点.