An energy-based method to extract plastic properties of metal materials from conical indentation tests

Based on dimensional analysis and finite element computations, an energy-based representative strain for conical indentation in elastoplastic materials has been proposed to establish an explicitly one-to-one relationship between the representative stress a,, the indentation loading curvature C, and the ratio of reversible work We to total work W-t performed by the indenter, i.e., sigma(r)/C = F-0(W-e/W-t), where sigma(r) is the flow stress corresponding to the representative strain. The relationship provides a very simple method to evaluate the representative stress sigma(r) from the three directly measurable quantities We, Wt, and C. Numerical examples and further theoretical analysis reveal that a unique, stable solution can be obtained from the present method for a wide range of material properties, including both highly plastic materials (e.g., Ni for which E/sigma(y) = 1070) and highly elastic materials (e.g., materials for which E/sigma(y) = 25 and n = 0.5), using indenters with different tip apex angles. Based on the representative strains and stresses given by two indenters with different tip apex angles, e.g., (sigma(r,80), is an element of(r,80)) and (sigma(r,65), is an element of(r,65)), the plastic properties of materials, i.e., the yield strength sigma(y) and strain hardening exponent n can be further determined.