Abstract:
Various methods have been designed to determine the elasto-plastic properties of metals. Instrumented indentation test (IIT) is considered to be a good candidate to determine local properties after manufacturing operations. In order to acquire elastoplastic properties from IIT, either dimensional analysis or inverse analysis of the force-displacement curve is performed. However, the major drawback of those methods is the uniqueness of the solution. Some materials may exhibit almost identical force-depth curves, although they have different elastoplastic properties. Those materials are referred as "mystical materials". In this contribution, topological features of the indentation surfaces, i.e. indent size, pile-up and sink-in behaviour, are investigated to find a differentiating property. According to the results, indent size, pile-up and sink-in behaviour may help to find the unique solution to the inverse problem. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
