The surface tension effect revealed via the indentation scaling index

Abstract

The axisymmetric frictionless indentation problem for an isotropic elastic half-space with the uniform surface tension is considered. The first-order regular and singular asymptotic models are constructed for the limit situations of relatively small (in the membrane limit) or large (in the Hertzian limit) values of the contact radius. By using the method of collocation, a two-parameter analytical approximate solution is developed with coefficients evaluated in triple quadratures. The accuracy of the obtained analytical models is investigated in the case of a paraboloidal indenter by comparison with numerical solutions available in the literature. Based on the asymptotic behavior of the solution in the limit situations, the so-called indentation scaling index is introduced for the analysis of the depth-sensing indentation data. By making use of the novel contact parameter it is possible to extract the surface tension effect independently of determining the reduced elastic modulus of a tested semi-infinite sample. It is shown that by employing an appropriate normalization, the contact problem can be reduced to that parameterized by only one parameter (relative contact radius), which implies that irrespectively of the combination of the material parameters, the force–displacement curve drawn in the normalized variables will be universal.