Erratum: “Indentation responses of time-dependent films on stiff substrates” [J. Mater. Res. 19, 2487 (2004)]

This article appeared in the August 2004 issue of Journal of Materials Research. The following corrections are required. Section II. Experiments p. 2488 The third paragraph in the Experiments section should appear as follows: One mechanism to explore changes in the shape of an indentation load-displacement response is to normalize the trace by its peak point. It has been demonstrated that the normalized [ h/h(P MAX ), P/P MAX ] experimental responses for bulk polymers indented at constant loading- and unloading rate with the same rise time (but at different peak load levels) are identical. Figure 1(a) shows raw load-displacement data for indentation tests performed at small peak loads in the thickest polymer film (Epon) in the current study. The peak loads, 1 and 2 mN, were chosen to correspond to depths less than 10% of the film thickness in both cases. The responses normalize to the same shape [Fig. 1(b)]. When the 1-mN normalized response is compared with those from much greater load levels (50 and 500 mN), there are clear changes in the shape of the response, both loading and unloading [Fig. 1(c)]. In particular, the loading response shifts from slightly less than quadratic (power law fit with exponent 1.8) for the 1-mN response, as would be expected for a quadratic material with some creep effect; to a response between quadratic and cubic (power law fit with exponent 2.6) for the 500-mN response. The unloading response is also altered in shape, with a steeper unloading tangent at the larger load.