Materials characterization by instrumented indentation using two different approaches

Experimental applications of two different approaches for interpretation of instrumented indentation experiments are proposed in this paper. The first approach is the application of methodology developed for spherical indentation based on models. The second approach is the application of inverse algorithm based on the minimization between experiments and simulated data. It was shown that inverse approach lead to a good prediction of elastic modulus for metals with a face-centred cubic crystal structure. However, for metals with a body-centred cubic crystal structure identified elastic modulus was 10% under values obtained by ultra-sound method. It was then shown that models developed for spherical indentation give more accurate results than inverse approach. Moreover, a sensitivity study of mesh density in inverse identification shows that the more the mesh density the more accurate the results.