Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032

www.actamat-journals.com

A new method to extract the plastic properties of metal

materials from an instrumented spherical indentation loading curve
Yan Ping Cao, Jian Lu *

LASMIS, FRE, CNRS 2719, Universite de Technologie de Troyes, 12 rue Marie Curie, BP 2060, 10010 Troyes, France
Received 4 March 2004; received in revised form 9 May 2004; accepted 11 May 2004
Available online 17 June 2004

Abstract

In this paper, a new methodology to extract the plastic properties of metallic materials from an instrumented spherical inden-
tation loading curve has been proposed using dimensional analysis and finite element computation. The representative strain er as
defined in [Acta Mater 49 (2001) 3899] for sharp indentation has been extended to spherical indentation, and identified as the
function of the indentation depth h with respect to indenter radius R. The representative strain has been used to determine the
closed-form expression of the indentation load at various given indentation depths, which is a function of the representative stresses
and reduced Young’s modulus. Based on the analytical results reported in this paper, an inverse approach has been presented which
allows the plastic properties of metal materials to be determined using the spherical indentation loading curve. The properties of the
present inverse problem, i.e. the existence, uniqueness and stability of the solution, have also been investigated to identify the extent
to which the present method can be applied effectively.

2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Spherical indentation; Plastic properties; Metal materials; Representative strain; Inverse approach

1. Introduction ties of materials using a spherical indentation test. Field

The idea of relating the mechanical properties of
materials to their hardness, which is usually measured
using indentation tests, dates back to the work of Tabor
[2] in 1951. Subsequently, Johnson’s spherical cavity
model [3,4] was used to predict the relationship between
hardness and yield strength. During the past two de-
cades, technological advances and the need to measure
the mechanical properties of materials on a small scale
have led to an increasing interest in the development of
systematic methods to deduce material properties and
from depth-sensing instrumented indentation experi-
ments, such as measuring the hardness and Young’s
modulus [1,5,6], the residual stresses [7–10] and plastic
properties [1,11–22]. The present work is part of wider
research on methods used to determine plastic proper-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-3-25715650; fax: +33-3-25715675.
E-mail address: Jian.Lu@utt.fr (J. Lu).
and Swain [23] have used the spherical indentation
method to evaluate material properties; in their work,
both the indentation loading and unloading responses
are needed. In the method developed by Taljat et al. [24],
the indentation diameter needs to be measured in order
to determine the stress–strain relationship. Kucharski
and Mroz [25] have proposed a systematic method to
determine plastic properties of materials using spheri-
cal indentation test, in their work, similar to the
method of Field and Swain [23], both indentation
loading and unloading information were applied. Huber
and Tsakmakis [26,27] have applied neural network and
cyclic indentation tests to determine the stress–strain
curve; their method is complex since cyclic loading is
needed. The work of Nayebi et al. [28] demonstrated
that it is possible to determine the plastic properties of
materials using the spherical indentation loading data
only; an analytical framework has been proposed in
their work, but for different types of steel only. Based on
the fact that yielding commences at the beginning of the

1359-6454/$30.00
2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2004.05.018
4024 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032
transition regime of the spherical indentation response,
Herbert et al. [29] have proposed an approach to esti-
mate the yield strength of materials using the indenta-
tion data in the early stages of transition, but they did
not show how to determine the strain hardening expo-
nent at the same time. Recently, one of the authors [30]
and his co-workers have also published a study to ex-
tract the plastic properties of materials from spherical
indentation loading data. The method described can be
used to determine the plastic properties of both power
law materials and materials that exhibit linear harden-
ing. The dimensionless functions established in the
above work [30] have been evaluated for a wide range of
material properties; the results were given in the form of
figures, but no analytical framework was put forward.
The properties of the inverse problem, i.e. the existence,
uniqueness and stability of the solution, were not dis-
cussed either.
In this paper, we will propose an analytical
framework to extract the plastic properties of metal
materials from the instrumented spherical indentation
loading curve by extending the representative strain as
defined in [1] for sharp indentation to spherical in-
dentation. Section 2 of our paper involves the material
model applied in the present work and the dimen-
sional analysis that characterizes the relationship be-
tween the indentation data and the elastic–plastic
properties of materials. Section 3 contains an exten-
sion of the representative strain, as defined in the
work of Dao et al. [1] for sharp indentation, to
spherical indentation which has been identified using
finite element computation as a function of the in-
dentation depth h with respect to the indenter radius
R. Based on the representative strain, the closed-form
expression of the indentation load at various given
indentation depths with respect to the indenter radius,
i.e. hg =R, has been obtained. In Section 4, an inverse
approach to extract the plastic properties of materials
from the instrumented spherical indentation loading
curve is presented. Unlike dual indenter algorithms
[11,12] in which two indenters with different tip apex
angles should be used, in the present method, based
on a single spherical indenter, the plastic properties of
materials, i.e. the yield strength ry and strain hard-
ening exponent n, can be uniquely determined using
the indentation loads at two different indentation
depths together with the known reduced Young’s
modulus. Numerical verifications performed on four
typical engineering metals have been used to demon-
strate the effectiveness of the present algorithm. In
Section 5, the properties of the present inverse prob-
lem, i.e. the existence, uniqueness and stability of the
solution, are investigated in detail to identify the ex-
tent to which the present method can be applied ef-
fectively. Section 6 summarizes the main contributions
made by the present research.
2. Material model and dimensional analysis
2.1. Material model
The power law description, widely used to ap-
proximate the plastic behavior of metal materials, has
also been applied to our analysis. For many pure and
alloyed engineering metals, it gives a good approxi-
mation of the uniaxial stress–strain curve. The ad-
vantages are obvious, although in some cases the
model may produce poor results. First, Dao et al. [1]
found that using the power law material model for a
given value of the reduced Young’s modulus, E
,
within a specified range of material parameters, a
representative strain of er ¼ 3:3% for a standard Ber-
kovich indenter (equivalent to 70.3 cone) can be
identified and used to normalize the loading curvature
independently of the material hardening exponent.
Second, the mathematical description of plastic be-
havior can be reduced to two independent parameters
using the power law strain hardening assumption.
Fig. 1 shows a schematic of stress–strain curve of a
power law material, represented by the following
equation:
r ¼ Ee ðr 6 ry Þ;
ð1Þ
r ¼ Ke n
ðr > ry Þ:
When r > ry , the flow stress can also be expressed as [1]
 n
E
r ¼ ry 1 þ e f ; ð2Þ
ry
where ef is the total effective strain accumulated beyond
the yield strain ey , and the representative stress rr is the
flow stress defined at ef ¼ er (see Fig. 2 in the work of
Dao et al. [1] or Fig. 1 in the present work for a detailed
definition of ey , ef , er and rr ).
σ
σr
σ = Kε n
σy
εr
E
εy ε
εf
Fig. 1. A schematic of the power law stress–strain relationship.
 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032
Fig. 2. (a) A schematic of the spherical indenter. (b) Finite element mesh.
2.2. Dimensional analysis
Dimensional analysis is a useful tool which has been
successfully used to analyze the indentation response. In
the representative work published by Cheng and Cheng
[31–33], based on dimensional analysis and FEM, several
scaling relationships are presented which provide new
insight into the shape of indentation curves. They are also
helpful as a guide to the FE analysis of conical indenta-
tions. Since then, single indenter algorithms [1] and dual
indenter algorithms [11,12], aimed at extracting the me-
chanical properties of materials, have also been based on
dimensional analysis and large deformation FEM. Our
discussion also begins with dimensional analysis. For the
spherical indentation of elastic–plastic substrates, during
the loading procedure and when yielding occurs, the in-
dentation load P must be a function of the following in-
4025
dependent parameters: Young’s modulus, E, and
Poisson’s ratio, v, of the elastic–plastic solids, Young’s
modulus, Ei , and Poisson’s ratio, vi , of the elastic indenter,
the yield strength, ry , the strain hardening exponent, n,
the indentation depth, h, and the indenter radius, R, i.e.
P ¼ f ðE; v; Ei ; vi ; ry ; n; R; hÞ: ð3Þ
Using the reduced Young’s modulus [4], Eq. (3) can be
reduced to
P ¼ f ðE
; ry ; n; h; RÞ; ð4Þ
where
1 1  v2 1  v2i


¼ þ : ð5Þ
E E Ei
Alternatively, Eq. (4) can be given by
P ¼ f ðE
; rr ; n; h; RÞ; ð6Þ
where the representative stress rr is defined as Eq. (2).
P theorem [34] is a key theorem in dimensional
analysis, which describes how every physically mean-
ingful equation involving k variables can be equivalently
rewritten as an equation of k  m dimensionless pa-
rameters, where m is the number of fundamental units
used. Furthermore, and most importantly, it provides a
method for computing these dimensionless parameters
from the given variables, even if the form of the equa-
tion is still unknown. Here, by applying the P theorem,
Eq. (6) can be expressed as


2 E h
P ¼ rr h P1 ; n; : ð7Þ
rr R
For a given indentation depth hg and an indenter radius
R, Eq. (7) reduces to


E
Pg ¼ rr h2g P1 ;n ; ð8Þ
rr
where the dimensionless function P1 relates the inden-
tation response to the material properties.
Tabor showed that hardness can be related to the
flow stress of the indented material corresponding to a
representative strain [2]. During the past decade, the
definition of the representative strain has been further
addressed [1,13,35–37]. In the present work, the repre-
sentative strain as defined in the work of Dao et al. [1]
has been applied which was a strain level that allows for
the construction of a dimensionless function indepen-
dent of the strain hardening exponent and only depen-
dent on the parameter E
=rr . In the next section, we will
identify the strain level for spherical indentation that
makes the dimensionless function P1 in Eq. (8) inde-
pendent of the strain hardening exponent n.
3. Identification of the representative strain
To identify the representative strain that makes the
dimensionless function P1 in Eq. (8) independent of the
4026 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032

strain hardening exponent, the finite element computa- Fig. 4 shows the effect of the selection of er on the
tions in this section were carried out using ABAQUS form of function P1 , for hg =R ¼ 0:06. Based on the
[38] for 24 different combinations of elastic–plastic computational results and methods presented by Dao
properties which include most engineering metals: et al. [1], the representative strain er corresponding to
Poisson’s ratio was fixed at 0.3, Young’s modulus was various indentation depths has been identified (Fig. 5)
varied from 10 to 210 GPa, the yield strength from 30 to and the dimensionless function P1 independent of the
2000 MPa, and the strain hardening exponent from 0.0 strain hardening exponent constructed. By fitting
to 0.5 (see Table 4 in the work of Bucaille et al. [11] or the results in Fig. 5 using second-order polynomials, the
Table 1 in the present work). An axisymmetric, two- representative strain corresponding to various hg =R was
dimensional model has been adopted here and a total of given by
10,000 four-node bilinear axisymmetry elements were  
hg hg
used to model the semi-infinite substrate of the indented er ¼ 0:00939 þ 0:435
solid. The boundary conditions are that the outer sur- R R
 2  
face nodes were traction-free with fixed lower surface hg hg
nodes. The indenter is assumed to be rigid and the ra-  1:106 0:01 6 6 0:1 ð9Þ
R R
dius R was taken as 5 mm. Friction is omitted in the
present computation. In the simulation, the model as- and the closed-form expression of the dimensionless
sumed isotropic power-law strain hardening, the yield function P1 was expressed as

 
 

criterion was that of Von Mises and large deformation E E E
formulations were included. The spherical indenter is P1 ¼ C1 ln3 þ C2 ln2
rr rr rr
schematically showed by Fig. 2(1). Fig. 2(2) gives the FE 

E
model used in the present analysis. Convergence of the þ C3 ln þ C4 ; ð10Þ
rr
computation was guaranteed by comparing the present
results with those calculated using a refined mesh where the coefficients C1 , C2 , C3 and C4 are dependent
(22,500 four-node bilinear axisymmetry elements), tak- on the parameter hg =R and their values in detail are gi-
ing E ¼ 210 GPa, v ¼ 0:3, n ¼ 0:1 and ry ¼ 300 MPa ven in Table 2.
(see Fig. 3). It should be emphasized that a representative strain
cannot be identified when hg =R is too small. Unlike
Table 1 sharp indentation, the spherical indentation loading re-
Elasto-plastic properties of materials used in the present computations, sponse encompasses several distinct stages, i.e. the initial
with the strain hardening exponent, n ¼ 0:0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, respectively
elastic regime, the elastic–plastic transition regime and
E (GPa) ry (MPa) the fully plastic regime. This problem has recently been
10 30 discussed in detail by Park and Pharr [39]. Therefore, if
50 200 hg =R is too small and the deformation is elastically
90 500
dominated, it is not possible to identify the corre-
130 2000
210 300 sponding representative strain discussed here. In the
210 1800 present work, the smallest value of hg =R is taken as
hg =R ¼ 0:01, for which a representative strain has been
successfully identified by using the material constants
listed in Table 1.
2000
mesh used in the present analysis
refined mesh 4. An inverse approach to extract the plastic properties of
1500
materials from the spherical indentation loading response

In direct application of the analytical results pre-

P(N)

1000
sented in Section 3, this section presents a method for
determining the plastic properties of metal materials by
500 spherical instrumented indentation. The method is il-
lustrated in Flowchart 1. It can be seen that in the
present method, using a single spherical indenter, the
0
plastic properties of materials, i.e. the yield strength ry
and strain hardening exponent n, can be determined
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
using the indentation loads corresponding to two dif-
h (mm)
ferent indentation depths (in Flowchart 1, hg;1 ¼ 0:01R
Fig. 3. Convergence test. and hg;2 ¼ 0:06R are taken as an example) and the
 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032 4027

480

440
360
400
320
360 n=0.0
320
280 n=0.1
n=0.3
n=0.0 240
P(hgσr)

280 n=0.5
2

n=0.1

P/(hgσr)
240 200

2
n=0.3
200 ε=0.0316
εr=0.012 n=0.5 160
160
120
120
80
80

40 40

0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
* *
(a) E /σr (b) E /σr

360

320

280

240 n=0.0
n=0.1
200
P/(hgσr)

n=0.3
2

160
n=0.5
εr=0.06
120

80

40

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
*
(c) E /σr

Fig. 4. Dimensionless function P1 in Eq. (8) constructed for hg =R ¼ 0:06 by applying three different values of the representative strain: (a) er ¼ 0:012,
(b) er ¼ 0:0316, (c) er ¼ 0:060. A representative strain er ¼ 0:0316 has been identified which makes the dimensionless function P1 independent of the
strain hardening exponent.

known reduced Young’s modulus, while in dual sharp
indenter algorithms [11,12], two indenters with different
tip apex angles have to be used to achieve the same goal.
To further verify the analytical expression developed
in the previous section and the effectiveness of the in-
verse approach given in Flowchart 1, numerical verifi-
cation has been performed using the properties of four
engineering metals (see Table 3). FEM was used to
simulate the indentation procedure and obtain the P–h
response and the computational model is same as that in
Section 3; the indentation loads at hg;1 ¼ 0:01R and
hg;2 ¼ 0:06R obtained by finite element computation
together with known reduced Young’s modulus were
used for the reverse algorithm inputs in Flowchart 1.
The plastic properties of materials, i.e. the yield strength
and strain hardening exponent, have been identified. In
all the cases studied here, a single, unique set of solu-
tions was obtained. Compared with the exact solutions
given in Table 4, the level of accuracy of the identified
results is good. In the next section, we will further dis-
cuss the properties of the inverse problem presented
here, i.e. the existence, uniqueness and stability of the
solution.
5. An investigation of the properties of the present inverse
problem
Unlike direct problems, many important inverse
problems in engineering and science are ill-posed. Ac-
cording to Hadamard’s definition [40], an inverse
problem is ill-posed if one of the following properties is
not respected: (1) There exists a solution to the problem
(existence). (2) There is, at most, one solution to the
4028 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032

0.045
Identified representative strain problem (uniqueness). (3) The solution continuously
corresponding to different hg /R depends on the data (stability). To identify the extent to
0.040 Fitted result using second order polynomials which the present method can be applied effectively, in
this section, the properties of the inverse problem, i.e.
0.035
representative strain

the existence, uniqueness and stability of the solution,

have been explored. Based on the properties of the op-
0.030
erator in the present inverse problem and the discussion
0.025
made in the previous work [12,21], the existence and
uniqueness of the solution can be guaranteed, while the
0.020 stability of the solution needs to be investigated in fur-
ther detail. Since measurements and numerical compu-
0.015 tations are always polluted by unavoidable errors, the
lack of stability can cause the computed solution to an
0.010
inverse problem to have nothing to do with the true
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 solution. Careful attention must, therefore, be paid to
hg/R this aspect. For dual indenter algorithms [12], the au-
thors have analyzed the stability of the solution by in-
Fig. 5. Identified representative strain corresponding to various hg =R.
troducing the concept of the condition number and
studying the optimum combinations of tip apex angles
[21]. In this section, we will explore the stability of the
solution to the present problem by following the same
Table 2
procedure.
The coefficients in Eq. (10) corresponding to various hg =R
hg =R C1 C2 C3 C4
5.1. Sensitivity of the identified representative stress to
0.01 )21.835 331.125 )1097.352 1155.349 data errors
0.02 )5.263 54.511 126.801 )615.371
0.03 )2.021 16.173 166.247 )468.866
0.04 )2.717 25.896 71.876 )260.281
In the case of dual indenter algorithms [12], when
0.05 )2.740 26.723 35.290 )165.404 investigating the stability of the inverse problem of
0.06 )3.236 36.951 )48.125 7.134 identifying the representative stress from the loading
0.07 )2.999 32.912 )39.816 1.682 curvature and the reduced Young’s modulus, the con-
0.08 )2.007 19.869 4.926 )49.791 dition number for the inverse problem has been defined
0.09 )1.609 14.623 19.095 )62.449
0.10 )1.356 11.500 25.055 )64.419
and its explicit-form expression derived (Eqs. (8) and (9)
and [21]). The analytical results can be used here directly
to explore the sensitivity to data errors of the repre-
sentative stress identified using the present method. The
Table 3
condition number of a problem measures the sensitivity
Elastic plastic parameters of four typical metals used to verify the
present method
E (GPa) ry (MPa) n 4.6
4.4
Steel 210 500 0.1 4.2
n=0.0,hg/R=0.01 n=0.0,hg/R=0.05
Iron 180 300 0.25 4.0
Aluminium alloy 70 500 0.122 3.8 n=0.0,hg/R=0.09 n=0.1,hg/R=0.01
Ti–6Al–4V 110 830 0.15 3.6 n=0.1,hg/R=0.05 n=0.1,hg/R=0.09
condition number

3.4 n=0.3,hg/R=0.01 n=0.3,hg/R=0.05

Poisson’s ratio is fixed as 0.3. 3.2
n=0.3,hg/R=0.09 n=0.5,hg/R=0.01
3.0
2.8 n=0.5,hg/R=0.05 n=0.5,hg/R=0.09
2.6
2.4
Table 4 2.2
2.0
A comparison of the identified plastic properties with the exact solu-
1.8
tions 1.6
1.4
Exact solutions Identified plastic properties
1.2
ry (MPa) n ry (MPa) n 1.0

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

Steel 500 0.1 470 0.125
E/σy
Iron 300 0.25 332 0.216
Al alloy 500 0.122 475 0.156
Fig. 6. A plot of the relationship between the condition number and
Ti–6Al–4V 830 0.15 826 0.151
the parameters ððE=ry Þ; hg =R; nÞ.
 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032 4029

Start

no
Determine the Young’s modulus using the Is the Young’s
methods of Oliver et al. [6] or Dao et al. [1] modulus E known?

yes

Carry out indentation test with a

spherical indenter (radius=R), and
E*
obtain indentation loading curve

Take the indentation load Pg,1 corresponding to

indentation depth, hg,1 (e.g., hg,1 = 0.01R )
and indentation load Pg,2 corresponding to
indentation depth, h g,2 (e.g., hg,2 = 0.06R).

Based on equation (2), (9) and

According to Pg,1, Pg,2, hg,1, hg,2, σ r ,1 , σ r , 2 i.e.
n
R, E * , equation (8), (10) and table E h g ,1
2, compute σ r ,1 , σ r , 2 .
σ r ,1 = σ y 1 + εr
σy R
n
E hg ,2
σ r ,2 = σ y 1 + εr
σy R
End ,determine σ y and n

Flowchart 1. Extracting the plastic properties of metal materials from the spherical indentation loading curve.

of the identified parameter to small changes in the input
data. A problem is ill-conditioned if the condition
number is large and it is ill-posed if the condition
number is infinity. Based on Eqs. (8) and (9) in the au-
thors’ previous work [21], the condition number for the
present problem, which varies with hg =R and the mate-
rial properties, is plotted in Fig. 6, from which the fol-
lowing information can be obtained: (1) For the same
hg =R and materials with the same E=ry , but a different
strain hardening exponent, the greater the strain hard-
ening, the more sensitive the identified result will be to
the error in the data. (2) For the same strain hardening
exponent and hg =R, the larger the parameter E=ry the
less sensitive the identified result will be to the error in
the data. (3) For materials listed in Table 1, with
65 6 E=ry 6 700 and 0 6 n 6 0:5, the largest condition
number is 4.4 and no ill-conditioned and ill-posed cases
are observed. As a result, the regularization schemes
proposed in [21] are not necessary for the present
problem.
5.2. Effects of the combination of parameters hg;1 =R and
hg;2 =R on the accuracy of the identified plastic properties
In the work of Baucaille et al. [11] and the authors’
previous research [21], it has been found that, in the
presence of data errors, the combination of tip apex
angles in the dual sharp indenter algorithms will sig-
nificantly affect the accuracy of the identified plastic
properties of materials. Considerable attention must,
therefore, be paid to the combination of tip apex angles
used – it cannot be chosen arbitrarily. In the present
method, the parameter corresponding to the tip apex
angle is hg =R. From Flowchart 1, it can be seen that two
4030 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032

different hg =R should be used to identify the plastic 0.9 case1 in table 5

E=210000MPa,n=0.1,σy =300MPa
properties of materials. Here, for the sake of conve- 0.8 case2 in table 5
case3 in table 5
nience, they are expressed as H1 ¼ hg;1 =R and 0.7 case4 in table 5

relative error of the yield strength

case5 in table 5
H2 ¼ hg;2 =R. To investigate the effect of the combination 0.6
case6 in table 5
of parameters H1 and H2 on the identified plastic 0.5 case7 in table 5
case8 in table 5
properties, an assumption similar to Assumption 2 in [21] 0.4

has first been made: 0.3

0.2
0.1
Assumption 1. For the algorithms described in Flow-
0.0
chart 1, H1 ; H2 , with 0:01 6 H1 < H2 6 0:1, H1 is fixed,
H2 varies from H01 to H02 with H1 < H01 < H02 6 0:1, and -0.1
-0.2
the measured indentation load PH2 , corresponding to
-0.3
different H2 , has a similar degree of accuracy.
-0.4
-0.5
The following analysis was carried out: 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
• The first parameter is taken to be H1 ¼ 0:01, which is hg,2/R
the smallest value in the present work; it is assumed
that the second parameter, H2 , varies from 0.04 to Fig. 7. A plot of the effect of the combination of parameters H1 ; H2 on
the accuracy of the identified results under Assumption 1, with
0.1. H1 ¼ hg;1 =R ¼ 0:01.
• The first parameter is taken to be H1 ¼ 0:03, and it is
assumed that the second parameter, H2 , varies from
0.06 to 0.1. 1.8
E=210000MPa,n=0.1,σy =300MPa case1 in table 5
case2 in table 5
In the analysis, for materials with the properties given 1.6
case3 in table 5
relative error of the yield strength

in Table 1, the analytical results proposed in Section 3 1.4 case4 in table 5

case5 in table 5
are used to carry out a forward analysis in order to 1.2
case6 in table 5
obtain the indentation loads at various given indenta- 1.0 case7 in table 5
case8 in table 5
tion depths. The independent relative errors shown in 0.8

Table 5 are then introduced into the indentation loads 0.6

and the reduced Young’s modulus, respectively, to 0.4

simulate the experimental data, and the inverse ap- 0.2

proach given by Flowchart 1 is used to identify the 0.0

plastic properties of the materials. By summarizing the -0.2
computational results, we found that, for the materials -0.4
in Table 1 for which 65 6 E=ry 6 700 and the level of -0.6
error given in Table 5, a conventional problem solving -0.8
method, such as the Newton method, can produce stable 6 7 8 9 10
results. Typical results are plotted in Figs. 7 and 8. For hg,2/R
other materials listed in Table 1, results with a similar
Fig. 8. A plot of the effect of the combination of parameters H1 ; H2 on
trend to those in Figs. 7 and 8 have been observed. It is the accuracy of the identified results under Assumption 1, with
not surprising that the error bands in the figures are H1 ¼ hg;1 =R ¼ 0:03.
wide, as we are discussing critical-error cases. It can be
seen from the figures that if Assumption 1 is used, we can
draw the following conclusion, which is similar to Conclusion 1 drawn in the authors’ previous work [21],
i.e.
Table 5
Relative errors in the indentation loads and reduced Young’s modulus Conclusion 1. For parameters H1 ; H2 , with
Combination Relative error in Relative error in Relative 0:01 6 H1 < H2 6 0:1, the larger kH2  H1 k, the better
of errors the indentation the indentation error in E
the identified results will be. With the same kH2  H1 k
load ðPH1 Þ load ðPH2 Þ
for different combinations of parameter, H1 ; H2 , e.g. a
Case 1 0.04 0.05 0.04 combination of H1 ¼ 0:02 and H2 ¼ 0:06, and a com-
Case 2 0.04 0.05 )0.04 bination of H1 ¼ 0:04 and H2 ¼ 0:08, the smaller the
Case 3 0.04 )0.05 0.04
Case 4 0.04 )0.05 )0.04
parameter H1 , the more accurate the results will be.
Case 5 )0.04 0.05 0.04
Case 6 )0.04 0.05 )0.04 Remark. By using the present method to measure the
Case 7 )0.04 )0.05 0.04 material properties which lie within the range studied
Case 8 )0.04 )0.05 )0.04 here, if H1 ¼ 0:01 is used, it can be seen from the
 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032 4031

results in Figs. 7 and 8 that when H2 P 0:06, the 6. Conclusions

larger the parameter H2 , the better the results will be,
but the improvement in accuracy is not very signifi-
cant. On the other hand, if a larger H2 is used, the
effects of friction become significant [41]. By taking
the Coulomb’s friction coefficient l ¼ 0:1, which is the
typical value of friction between a metal and a dia-
mond [19,42], and using FEM, the effects of friction
on the indentation load have been investigated. Fig. 9
shows typical cases of the results. It can be found
from the results that the effects of friction on the in-
dentation load for materials which exhibit piling-up
under indentation are much more significant than for
materials which show sinking-in under the indenter. It
can also be seen from the figure that when, H2 P 0:08
the effect of friction should be taken into consider-
ation that will be discussed in detail in our further
work. In conclusion, at present, the combination of
H1 ¼ 0:01 and H2 ¼ 0:06  0:08 is recommended for
practical use of the method.
In the present paper, a new method has been pro-
posed to extract the plastic properties of metal materials
from the instrumented spherical indentation loading
curve by extending the representative strain as defined in
the work of Dao et al. [1] for sharp indentation to
spherical indentation, and the following contributions
made:
• The representative strain as defined in the work of
Dao et al. [1] for sharp indentation has been success-
fully extended to spherical indentation; which has
been identified using finite element computation as
a function of the indentation depth h with respect
to the indenter radius R. Based on the representative
strain, the closed-form expression of the indentation
load as a function of material properties at various gi-
ven hg =R has been obtained.
• Based on the analytical results presented in this
paper, an inverse approach to extract the plastic

35000
3000
frictionless solution frictionless solution
result for friction coefficient=0.1 30000 result for friction coefficient=0.1
2500
E=10GPa, σy=30MPa,n=0.0
E=210GPa, σy=300MPa,n=0.0
25000
2000
20000
P (N)

P (N)

1500
15000

1000
10000

500
5000

0
0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.20
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.20 0.22
(a) hg/R (b) hg/R

300000
frictionless solution
result for friction coefficient=0.1
250000
E=130GPa, σy=2000MPa,n=0.5

200000
P (N)

150000

100000

50000

0
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20
(c) hg/R

Fig. 9. A plot of the effects of friction on the indentation loading curves.

4032 Y.P. Cao, J. Lu / Acta Materialia 52 (2004) 4023–4032
properties of materials from the instrumented spher-
ical indentation loading curve has been presented.
Unlike dual indenter algorithms [11,12] in which
two indenters with different tip apex angles should
be used, in the present method, based on a single
spherical indenter, the plastic properties of materials,
i.e. the yield strength ry and strain hardening expo-
nent n, can be uniquely determined using the indenta-
tion loads at two different indentation depths
together with the known reduced Young’s modulus.
Numerical verifications performed on four typical en-
gineering metals have been used to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the present algorithm.
• The properties of the present inverse problem, i.e. the
existence, uniqueness and stability of the solution,
have been investigated in detail. The results not only
identify the extent to which the present method can
be applied effectively but also provide useful informa-
tion for practical use of the method, e.g. selection of
the parameter hg =R.
• The results of the stability analysis show that the lar-
ger kH2  H1 k, the better the identified results will be.
However, if a larger H2 is used, the effects of friction
become significant. This problem has also been dis-
cussed in the present work and further investigation
of the effects of friction will be presented in our sub-
sequent publications.
Lastly, it should be emphasized that this paper
mainly focuses on the development of algorithms and a
theoretical analysis of the properties of the inverse
problem. Further experimental studies will be especially
useful and will be an essential part of our future re-
search.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support from
the government of Champagne Region in France by way
of a post-doctor scholarship to the first author.
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