Effect of the conditions of dynamic nanoindentation on the strain-rate sensitivity of hardness for solids with different structures

A technique for the determination of the strain-rate sensitivity of hardness during dynamic nanoindentation is proposed. The strain-rate sensitivities of the dynamic hardnesses of a wide class of materials (fcc metals, carbon steels, bulk amorphous metallic alloys, ionic and covalent crystals, polymers, and ceramics) are determined. The variation of these strain-rate sensitivities with the relative-strain rate (in the (e)\dot]\dot \varepsilon range from 3 × 10⁻³ to 5 × 10³ s⁻¹) and the indentation depth (in the range from 30 nm to 2μm) is studied.