CONTINUUM ANALYSIS OF SHARP INDENTATION EXPERIMENTS IN METALLIC MATERIALS: THEORY AND FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATIONSSummary: This thesis provides a sound physical rationale to the analysis of indentation experiments. First, it extends the concept of the contact deformation regimes to metallic materials exhibiting strain hardening effects. The main outcome along these lines is the development of a contact deformation map, which predicts the active contact regime for a given combination of mechanical properties of the indented material. The map is based upon extensive finite element simulations elucidating the fundamental features of the plastic flow patterns and plastic zone shape in metals deforming within the elasto-plastic and the fully plastic contact regimes. General relations are then found between hardness and the amount of material pileup and sinking-in developing at the contact boundary with uniaxial mechanical properties. These relations are central in devising a novel methodology for mechanical property extraction based on direct assessments of the imprintâs topography and instrumented indentation applied load (P)âpenetration depth (hs) curves. The final part of the thesis presents a general framework to the analysis of frictional effects between indenter and material. This knowledge allows one to extend the aforementioned methodology in dealing with frictional contacts. Finally, a detailed analysis is made on the analogy between indentation experiments and the problem of the expansion of a spherical cavity. Closed-form solutions for the expansion of the cavity in strain hardening solids are first derived. The finite element simulations provide a strict parametrical analogy between contact variables and those from expanding cavity formulations. The main outcome of this analysis is the development of new formulations which evaluate the plastic zone size in sharp indentation experiments of strain hardening metallic materials.
