NanoindentationLecture 1

Basic Principle

Do Kyung Kim

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

KAIST

Indentation test (Hardness test)

• Hardness – resistance to penetration of a hard indenter

Hardness

• Hardness is a measure of a material’s resistance to surface penetration by an indenter with a force applied to it.

• Hardness– Brinell, 10 mm indenter, 3000 kg Load F /surface area of

indentation A– Vickers, diamond pyramid indentation

• Microhardness– Vickers microindentation : size of pyramid comparable to

microstructural features. You can use to assess relative hardness of various phases or microconstituents.

• Nanoindentation

Microhardness - Vickers and Knoop

Microindentation

Optical micrograph of a Vickersindentation (9.8 N) in soda-lime glassincluding impression, radial cracking,and medial cracking fringes.

• Mechanical property measurement in micro-scale(Micro-indentation)

– To study the mechanical behavior of different orientations, we need single crystals.

– For a bulk sample, it is hard to get a nano-scale response from different grains.

– Very little information on the elastic-plastic transition.

Nanoindentation

• Nanoindentation is called as,– The depth sensing indentation– The instrumented indentation

• Nanoindentation method gained popularity with the development of,

– Machines that can record small load and displacement with high accuracy and precision

– Analytical models by which the load-displacement data can be used to determine modulus, hardness and other mechanical properties.

Micro vs Nano Indentation

• MicroindentationA prescribed load applied to an indenter in contact with a specimen and the load is then removed and the area of the residual impression is measured. The load divided by the by the area is called the hardness.

• NanoindentationA prescribed load is appled to an indenter in contact with a specimen. As the load is applied, the depth of penetration is measured. The area of contact at full load is determined by the depth of the impression and the known angle or radius of the indenter. The hardness is found by dividing the load by the area of contact. Shape of the unloading curve provides a measure of elastic modulus.

Anthony C. Fischer-Cripps, Principles of nanoindentation, training lecture

Basic Hertz’s elastic solution (1890s)

Schematics of indenter tips

Vickers Berkovich Knoop Conical Rockwell Spherical

4-sided indenters

3-sided indenters

Cone indenters

Stress field under indenter - contact field

Boussinesq fields (point load) Hertzian fields (spherical indenter)

Brian Lawn, Fracture of Brittle Solids, 1993, Cambridge PressAnthony Fischer-Cripp, Intro Contact Mechanics, 2000, Springer

Sharp indenter (Berkovich)

• Advantage– Sharp and well-defined

tip geometry– Well-defined plastic

deformation into the surface

– Good for measuring modulus and hardness values

• Disadvantage– Elastic-plastic transition

is not clear.

Blunt indenter - spherical tip

• Advantage– Extended elastic-plastic

deformation– Load displacement results

can be converted to indentation stress-strain curve.

– Useful in determination of yield point

• Disadvantage– Tip geometry is not very

sharp and the spherical surface is not always perfect.

Data Ananlysis

• P : applied load• h : indenter displacement• hr : plastic deformation after load removal• he : surface displacement at the contact perimeter

Analytical Model – Basic Concept

• Nearly all of the elements of this analysis were first developed by workers at the Baikov Institute of Metallurgy in Moscow during the 1970's (for a review see Bulychev and Alekhin). The basic assumptions of this approach are

– Deformation upon unloading is purely elastic– The compliance of the sample and of the indenter tip can be

combined as springs in series

– The contact can be modeled using an analytical model for contact between a rigid indenter of defined shape with a homogeneous isotropic elastic half space using

• where S is the contact stiffness and A the contact area. This relation was presented by Sneddon. Later, Pharr, Oliver and Brotzen where able to show that the equation is a robust equation which applies to tips with a wide range of shapes.

Analytical Model – Doerner-Nix Model

Anthony C. Fischer-Cripps, Nanoindentation, 2002, Springer

Analytical Model – Field and Swain

• They treated the indentation as a reloading of a preformed impression with depth hf into reconformation with the indenter.

Field, Swain, J Mater Res, 1993

Analytical Model – Oliver and Pharr

Oliver & Pharr, J Mater Res, 1992

Continuous Stiffness Measurement (CSM)

• The nanoindentation system applies a load to the indenter tip to force the tip into the surface while simultaneously superimposing an oscillating force with a force amplitude generally several orders of magnitude smaller than the nominal load.

• It provides accurate measurements of contact stiffness at all depth.

• The stiffness values enable us to calculate the contact radius at any depth more precisely.

Oliver, Pharr, Nix, J Mater Res, 2004

Analysis result

• Hardness

''111 22

* EEEυυ −

+−

=

pAE

dhdP *2=

222 5.243.65tan33 pp hhA ==

5.241

21* π

βphdhdPE =

25.24 phPH =

• Elastic modulus

• Contact area

• Stiffness

• Reduced modulus

034.1=β for Berkovich indenter

E: modulus of specimenE’: modulus of indenter

for Berkovich indenter

Indenter geometry

Indenter type Projected areaSemi angle

(θ)

Effective cone angle

(α)

Intercept factor

Geometry correction factor (β)

Sphere A ≈ π2Rhp N/A N/A 0.75 1

Berkovich A = 3hp2tan2θ 65.3 ° 70.2996 ° 0.75 1.034

Vickers A = 4hp2tan2θ 68 ° 70.32 ° 0.75 1.012

Knoop A = 2hp2tanθ1tanθ2

θ1=86.25 °θ2=65 ° 77.64 ° 0.75 1.012

Cube Corner A = 3hp2tan2θ 35.26 ° 42.28 ° 0.75 1.034

Cone A = πhp2tan2α α α 0.72 1

Anthony C. Fischer-Cripps, Nanoindentation, 2002, Springer

Nov 28, 2006No of citationNov 2003 - 1520, Nov 2005 - 2436

One of the most cited paper in Materials Science

Material response

Anthony C. Fischer-Cripps, Nanoindentation, 2002, Springer

Nanoindenter tips

Berkovich indenter

Projected area

222

2

56.243.65tan33

3.65tan32

3.65tan323.65sin323.65cos

27.65cos

43

2

23

2/60tan

hhA

ha

aah

bh

aalA

al

al

oproj

o

oo

o

o

proj

o

==

=

==

=

==

=

=

b

Berkovich vs Vickers indenter

• Face angle of Berkovich indenter: 65. 3 °

• Same projected area-to-depth ratio as Vickers indenter

• Equivalent semi-angle for conical indenter: 70.3 ° απ 22 tanphA =

222 56.243.65tan33 hhA oproj == 222 504.2468tan4 hhA o

proj ==

• Berkovich projected area • Vickers projected area

Commercial machines

• MTS_Nano-Indenter XP

• CSM_NHT•(Nano-Hardness Tester)

• Hysitron_Triboscope

• CSIRO_UMIS•(Ultra-Micro-Indentation System)

Commercial machine implementation

• MTS_Nano-Indenter • CSIRO_UMIS

• Hysitron_TriboScope • CSM_NHT

• Inductive force generation system• Displacement measured by capacitance gage

• Two perpendicular transducer systems• Displacement of center plate capacitively measured

• Load via leaf springs by expansion of load actuator• Deflection measured using a force LVDT

• Force applied by an electromagnetic actuator• Displacement measured via a capacitive system

Force actuation• Electromagnetic actuation • Electrostatic actuation

• Spring-based force actuation • Piezo/spring actuation

• most common means• long displacement range & wide load range• Large and heavy due to permanent magnet

• Electrostatic force btwn 3-plate transducer applied• Small size (tenths of mm) & good temperature stability• Limited load(tenths of mN) & displacement(tenths of µN)

• Tip attached to end of cantilever & • Sample attached to piezoelectric actuator• Displacement of laser determine displacement

• Tip on leaf springs are displaced by piezoelectric actuator• Force resolution is very high ( pN range), • As resolution goes up, range goes down & Tip rotation

Displacement measurement• Differential capacitor • Optical lever method

• Linear Variable Differential Transducer (LVDT)

• Laser interferometer

• Measure the difference btwn C1 and C2 due to ∆• High precision(resolution < 1 Å) & small size• Relatively small displacement range

dAC ⋅⋅

= 0εε

• Photodiode measures lateral displacement• Popular method in cantilever based system• Detection of deflection < 1 Å

• AC voltage proportional to relative displacement• High signal to noise ratio and low output impedance• lower resolution compared to capacitor gage

• Beam intensity depends on path difference• Sensitivity < 1 Å & used in hostile environment• Fabry-Perot system used for displacement detection

Factor affecting nanoindentation

• Thermal Drift

• Initial penetration depth

• Instrument compliance

• Indenter geometry

• Piling-up and sinking-in

• Indentation size effect

• Surface roughness

• Tip rounding

• Residual stress

• Specimen preparation

Thermal drift

• Drift can be due to vibration or a thermal drift

• Thermal drift can be due to– Different thermal expansion in the machine– Heat generation in the electronic devices

• Drift might have parallel and/or a perpendicular component to the indenter axis

• Thermal drift is especially important when studying time varying phenomena like creep.

Thermal drift calibration

Indenter displacement vs time during a period of constant load. The measured drift rate is used to correct the load displacement data.

Application of thermal drift correction to the indentation load-displacement data

Machine compliance

• Displacement arising from the compliance of the testing machine must be subtracted from the load-displacement data

• The machine compliance includes compliances in the sample and tip mounting and may vary from test to test

• It is feasible to identify the machine compliance by the direct measurement of contact area of various indents in a known material

• Anther way is to derive the machine compliance as the intercept of 1/total contact stiffness vs 1/ sqrt(maximum load) plot, if the Young’s modulus and hardness are assumed to be depth-independent

Machine compliance calibration

Usually done by manufacturer using materials with known properties (aluminum for large penetration depths, fused silica for smaller depth).

Using an accurate value of machine stiffness is very important for large contacts, where it can significantly affect the measured load-displacement data.

Real tip shape

• Deviation from perfect shape

Sphero-Conical tips

Anthony C. Fischer-Cripps, Nanoindentation, 2002, Springer

Area function calibration

• Ideal tip geometry yields the following area-to-depth ratio:

A = 24.5 hc2

• Real tips are not perfect!

• CalibrationUse material with known elastic properties (typically fused silica) and determine its area as a function of contact

• New area function

A = C1hc2 + C2hc + C3hc

1/2 + C4hc1/4 + C5hc

1/8 + …

Surface roughness

• As sample roughness does have a significant effect on the measured mechanical properties, one could either try to incorporate a model to account for the roughness or try to use large indentation depths at which the influence of the surface roughness is negligible.

• A model to account for roughness effects on the measured hardness is proposed by Bobji and Biswas.

• Nevertheless it should be noticed that any model will only be able to account for surface roughnesses which are on lateral dimensions significantly smaller compared to the geometry of the indent

Pile-up and Sinking-in

Phase transition measurement

• Nanoindentation on silicon and Raman analysis

Creep measurement

• Plastic deformation in all materials is time and temperature dependent

• Important parameter to determine is the strain rate sensitivity

• The average strain rate can be given by

• It can be done by experiments at different loading rate or by studying the holding segment of a nanoindentation.

dtdh

hc

cind

1=ε

Fracture toughness measurement

Combining of Laugier proposed toughness model and Ouchterlony’s radial cracking modification factors, fracture toughness can be determined.

Fracture toughness expression

Kc = 1.073 xv (a/l)1/2 (E/H)2/3 P / c3/2

High temperature measurement

Nanindentation with or without calibration

• Temperature match btw. indenter and sample is important for precision test.

• Prior depth calibration and post thermal drift correct are necessary.

Nanomechanical testing

• Tests– Nanohardness/Elastic

modulus– Continuous Stiffness

Measurements– Acoustic Emmisions– Properties at Various

Temperature– Friction Coefficient– Wear Tests– Adhesion– NanoScratch Resistance– Fracture Toughness– Delamination

• Common Applications– Fracture Analysis– Anti-Wear Films– Lubricant Effect– Paints and Coatings– Nanomachining– Bio-materials– Metal-Matrix Composites– Diamond Like Carbon

Coatings– Semiconductors– Polymers– Thin Films Testing and

Development– Property/Processing

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