Instrumented indentation for determining the structural state of materials

Crystalline and noncrystalline materials with different compositions and phase and structural states are examined by the instrumented indentation method. Based on the previously obtained fundamental equation of indentation H IT /E* = 0.687ctgα(h s /h c ), it is shown that the ratio of beyond-contact and contact indentation depths (h s /h c ) characterizes the mechanical properties of a specific material under loading of this type. With the new technique for processing and analyzing the results from instrumented indentation, structural states of materials can be identified on small samples.