Determining the surface properties and inherent properties of solid materials using material-independent indentation technique

A simple and material-independent indentation technique is presented to determine the hardness and elastic modulus of solid materials. This method requires only three experimentally measured quantities to determining the material properties, i.e., the peak load, corresponding displacements and the depth of residual indent, without curve fitting process and regression analysis. The results obtained from this simple technique were consistent with those obtained by using the conventional method. Furthermore, energy dissipation and the ability of elastic recovery of the ceramic materials were evaluated from the measured indentation data.