Evaluation of mechanical and fracture characteristics using instrumented indentation technique

The material characterization on the weak points of the structural systems is essential to evaluate safety accurately. However, general material characterization methods such as uniaxial tensile test and CTOD (crack tip opening displacement) test are destructive, therefore, it cannot be applied to the system in use. To overcome this problem, the material characterization using instrumented indentation technique was developed. However, current researches on instrumented indentation technique focus on the hardness measurement. The evaluation of flow property, residual stress and fracture toughness using instrumented indentation technique is not sufficiently performed. In this paper, we introduce the evaluation method of the flow property, the residual stress near the weldment and the fracture toughness developed from damage mechanics. The algorithm of flow property evaluation, the residual stress evaluation model and the fracture toughness model by using indentation were verified comparing with the experimental results.