Discrete characteristic and edge effect during subsurface microhardness measurement of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Abstract This paper investigates the discrete characteristic and edge effect of subsurface microhardness of Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The results show that the discrete degree of Ti-6Al-4V alloy microhardness decreases with increasing loading force. When the loading force is 200 gf, only five microhardness measurements are needed to reduce the interference of discrete characteristic. Importantly, the edge effect was found during measuring the subsurface microhardness of Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The edge effect means that the microhardness value is little when its indentation position is close to a workpiece edge. Finite element analysis reveals that the low support strength of workpiece edge is responsible for the edge effect. This study further clarifies that a Vickers indenter is not suitable for characterizing the machined subsurface microhardness on account of the limitations of edge effect and indenter size.