Indentation behavior of multiferroic composite materials under an axisymmetric power-law shaped indenter

Abstract

Nanoindentation technique has been widely employed to characterize various material properties of multiferroic composite medium, where the indenter tip may have more general profile rather than just three common simple shapes (flat, cone and sphere). In this paper, the frictionless indentation problem of a transversely isotropic multiferroic half-space punched by an axisymmetric power-law shaped indenter is investigated. By virtue of the Hankel integral transform, the stated mixed boundary value problem is reduced to dual integral equations, which are then solved analytically. Closed-form solutions for the coupled physical fields at the surface of multiferroic half-space under the action of the power-law shaped indenters with four different electromagnetic properties are obtained, which can include the existing results in literature as special cases. The explicit analytical expressions of load-displacement relationship for the power-law shaped indenter are derived for the first time, which provide the theoretical foundation for characterizing material properties of multiferroic composite medium. The effects of the shape index and electromagnetic properties of the indenter on indentation behaviors are discussed in detail. It is found that the shape index has a significant effect on both the load-displacement relationship and the distribution of the generalized stress fields. The analytical solutions derived from this work can serve as benchmarks for experimental test and characterization of multiferroic composite materials.