Method for determining plastic properties of metals by instrumented indentation

The instrumented indentation is a useful tool to probe the plastic properties of metals. The finite element computations combined with instrumented indentation experiments were applied to choose the diamond indenters which were used to estimate the plastic properties of metals. The methods for determining the plastic properties of metals based on the ratio of indentation work We/Wt and nominal hardness Hn were established with the aid of dimensional analysis and finite element computations. 0.2% yield strength (σ0.2) and strain hardening exponent (Hn) were suggested to be the target parameters based on the accuracy analysis of the methods. The errors of σ0.2 of 6061 aluminum alloy, S45C carbon steel, SS316 stainless steel, SS304 stainless steel and brass are from -17.5% to 4%, which satisfies the need of engineering application. This verifies the effectiveness of the methods.