Optimization on the Material Properties Prediction of Steels using Instrumented Indentation

This research work aims to investigate the relationships between constitutive material parameters of elasto-plastic materials, indentation of P-h curves and hardnesses; has been systematically researched through numerical and experimental studies, using sharp and spherical indenters of indenting modeling on hardness measurements by combining representative stress analysis and Finite Element modeling. Systematic experimental work has been carried out on steel samples of various carbon contents and heat treatment including indentation, with various loads have been used to characterise the indentation size effect of the materials, and to establish the load that gives hardness values consistently. Finite Element model of Vickers hardness tests have been developed and a method of estimating the hardness values from the P-h curves based on representative stress and energy method was established and validated with experimental data. The hardness values predicted are compared with the experimental data. Based on the hardness values of materials with a wide range of properties, the relationship between the hardness values dual indenter (Hv and HRB) with representative stress was developed, which was used to evaluate the feasibility of using hardness values, thus improve the robustness of the inverse program in predicting constitutive material parameters, with a focus on uniqueness by mapping through all potential materials ranges