Identification of elastic constants of FCC metals from 2D load-indentation curves

We derive an expression relating the axial load, the indentation depth, and the elastic constants of an orthotropic material, and simplify it to that for a cubic material (e.g., an FCC single crystal). We use this formula and results of three virtual (i.e., numerical) indentation tests on the same specimen oriented differently to find values of the elastic moduli, and show that they agree well with their expected values. We also give the error in the computed values of the elastic moduli of an FCC crystal caused by the misorientation of the specimen during the indentation test. The technique can be generalized to other anisotropic materials.