The assessment of elasto-plastic properties of materials from nanoindentation and computer modeling. 1. State-of-the-art of the problem (Review of the literature)

The review and critical analysis have been done of the existing methods and approaches to the determination of elasto-plastic properties of materials from nanoindentation. The problems, which still remain open, have been formulated and main directions of the effort to solve them have been indicated. They have been shown to consist in improving nanoindentation procedures; using other means to obtain an additional information, which in combination with the nanoindentation data, will provide the unambiguous assessment of the material mechanical properties; further developing model notions of the contact interaction in the indenter-sample system and regularities of the material strain in nanovolumes and at high pressures.