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Identifying the limitation of Oliver and Pharr method in characterizing the viscoelastic-plastic materials with respect to indenter geometry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Keerthika Balasundaram ,
Yanping Cao  and
Dierk Raabe
Keerthika Balasundaram
Affiliation:
keerthika.b@mpie.de, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Eisenforschung GmbH, Microstructure Physics and Metal Forming, Duesseldorf, Germany
Yanping Cao
Affiliation:
caoyanping@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn, Institute of Biomechancis and Medical Engineering, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Beijing, China
Dierk Raabe
Affiliation:
d.raabe@mpie.de, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Eisenforschung GmbH, Microstructure Physics and Metal Forming, Duesseldorf, Germany
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Abstract

Nanoindentation tests are widely used in recent years to characterize the mechanical properties of viscoelastic-plastic materials like polymers and biomaterials at the micro or nano-scale using the analysis method proposed by Oliver & Pharr (OP). However, recent studies revealed that the mechanical properties of viscoelastic-plastic (polymeric) materials determined using the OP method does not lead to a correct evaluation of Young's modulus. A systematic experimental study is performed with different indenter geometries like spherical and Berkovich geometries using various polymers in order to identify the limitations of the OP method.

Keywords

nano-indentationpolymerviscoelasticity

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References

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