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Importance of surface preparation on the nano-indentation stress-strain curves measured in metals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Siddhartha Pathak ,
Dejan Stojakovic ,
Roger Doherty  and
Surya R. Kalidindi
Siddhartha Pathak
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Dejan Stojakovic
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Roger Doherty
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Surya R. Kalidindi*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
*
a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: skalidin@coe.drexel.edu
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Abstract

In this work, we investigated experimentally the various factors influencing the extraction of indentation stress-strain curves from spherical nanoindentation on metal samples using two different tip radii. In particular, we focused on the effects of (i) the surface preparation techniques used, (ii) the presence of a surface oxide layer, and (iii) the occurrence of pop-ins at the elastic-plastic transition on our newly developed data analysis methods for extracting reliable indentation stress-strain curves. Rough mechanical polishing was shown to introduce a large scatter in the measured indentation yield strengths, whereas electropolishing or vibropolishing produced consistent results reflective of the pristine sample. The data analysis techniques used were able to discard the portions of the raw data affected by a thin oxide layer, present on most metal surfaces, and yield reasonable indentation stress-strain curves. Experiments with different indenter tip radii on annealed and cold-worked samples indicated that pop-ins are caused by delayed nucleation of dislocations in the sample under the indenter.

Keywords

MetalNanoindentationStress/strain relationship
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , March 2009 , pp. 1142 - 1155
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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