Influence of Uniaxial Stress on the Stress-Strain Curve Measured by Nanoindentation

A nanoindentation technique with a spherical indenter of tip radius 10 μm is applied to the evaluation of stress-strain curve at a local area of a pure iron under the uniaxial compressive stress exerted through the iron, and the influence of the compressive stress on the estimated stress-strain curve has been examined. A continuous multiple loading method is employed to determine the stress-strain curve. In the method, a set of 21 times of loading/unloading sequences with increasing terminal load are made and load-displacement curves with the different terminal loads from 0.1 mN to 100 mN are then continuously obtained and converted to a stress-strain curve. To examine the stress dependence of the stress-strain curve, the estimation by the nanoindentetion is performed under different uniaxial compressive stresses up to 250 MPa. It has been found that the stress-strain curve determined by the nanoindentation shifts upward as the compressive stress increases and the quantity of the shift is almost equal to the uniaxial stress acting on the iron specimen. It is also noted that the yield stress (0.2 % proof stress) estimated from the stress-strain curve increases almost proportionally to the uniaxial stress and the increase ratio tends to decrease as the stress reaches around 200 MPa.