New ceramics related investigation of the indentation energy concept

Abstract

The nanomechanical properties of advanced materials can be determined from analytical models or experimentally using depth sensing indentation (DSI) instruments. In the latter method, load-displacement and energy data can be used successfully to determine the required properties. Three different values of the energy have been commonly used: the total, the plastic and the elastic values. In the present work dealing with ceramics (SiO 2, TiO 2 and Ta 2O 5), instead of limiting the energy concept to these energies, we consider for the first time a set of other energy values obtained from a new partition of the load-displacement plane. It is noticed that, with no dependence on load and displacement changes, some linear relationships hold between these energy terms and allow introducing new constants specific to the mechanical behaviour of ceramics. An exhaustive representation of all possible energies is proposed with identification of the five unique ones. The absolute energy is the one that reveals to be a reference value in comparison to the others, and useful for further investigations related to the modelling of indentation procedure.