Structural integrity concerns with the ability of a structure or component to support the designed service load without failure caused by deformation, fracture or fatigue. To construct an item with structural integrity, an engineer must first consider...
Structural integrity concerns with the ability of a structure or component to support the designed service load without failure caused by deformation, fracture or fatigue. To construct an item with structural integrity, an engineer must first consider the mechanical properties of the material, such as strength, hardness, fracture toughness and fatigue properties and then determine a suitable size, thickness, or shape that will endure the necessary loading for a long lifetime. In many cases, structural failure occurs because of changes in the material’s mechanical properties due to degradation or embrittlement, so that measuring the in-situ mechanical properties of in-service structural components is required to assess structural integrity. Fatigue properties and fracture toughness, which are among the most important properties required for structural integrity, can be determined using standardized test methods such as those developed by ASTM and BS. However, these methods cannot be applied directly to in-service structures or to small-volume regions of material such as the weld zone because they require specific specimen dimensions and complex test procedures. For this reason, an alternative test method to measure in-situ mechanical properties has been developed. Instrumented indentation testing (IIT), developed for nondestructive testing of in field structures, can be used to measure such mechanical properties as hardness, elastic modulus, tensile properties, residual stress, and fracture toughness by analysis of the indentation load-depth curve. IIT makes just a small indent on the material surface and hence can be applied in in-situ and in-field measurement as nondestructive mechanical testing as well as for property mapping by local area testing on multi-scale levels. Most studies on instrumented indentation testing have focused on static indentation testing, and little work has been done on cyclic indentation testing. Cyclic indentation testing has great potential to complement conventional cyclic or fatigue testing because the advantages of static IIT also apply to cyclic indentation. In this thesis, we adapt cyclic instrumented indentation testing to evaluate fatigue properties. Two kinds of control mode on cyclic indentation are used; cyclic indentation depth-controlled mode and cyclic indentation load-controlled mode. In cyclic indentation depth-controlled testing, hysteresis loop observed in indentation load-depth and is found to be caused by Bauschinger effect induced by kinematic hardening. Therefore, we develop a model for evaluating the uniaxial Bauschinger effect, which is also called backstress. In the load-controlled test, we observed that indentation depth continuously increases and saturates at a certain cycle. We analyze this phenomenon in terms of hardening behavior and confirm that increase in indentation depth behavior is similar to uniaxial ratcheting behavior. Therefore, we develop the new model for estimating material ratcheting property. The estimated Bauschinger effect and material ratcheting property were compared to values obtained in conventional fatigue tests.
In addition, static flat punch indentation is also used to develop a criterion for estimating fracture characteristics. For ductile materials like metals, cracking does not occur during indentation. Many researchers have worked to estimate the fracture toughness of metallic materials using instrumented indentation testing and trying to develop theoretical or experimental models. Most such models are one of two types: the models for brittle metallic materials or the models for ductile metallic materials. For brittle metallic materials, the estimated fracture toughness has been limited to specific ranges for relatively low fracture toughness (KJC < 120 MPa·m0.5), that is, in the lower shelf region of the ductile-brittle transition curve. For ductile metallic materials, the estimated fracture toughness has been limited to a specific range for relatively large fracture toughness (KJC > 250 MPa·m0.5) or in the upper shelf region of the ductile-brittle transition curve. Therefore, distinguishing the two types of model or selecting a specific models are important issues. We propose a criterion for estimating whether a material is in the range of brittle fracture characteristic (KJC < 120 MPa·m0.5) or ductile fracture characteristic (KJC > 250 MPa·m0.5) using static flat punch indentation. The two key factors for developing the criterion are determined based on equivalence of fracture mechanics and contact mechanics. The fracture toughness values of 23 kinds of materials obtained from conventional fracture toughness testing are compared to the proposed criterion for verification.