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Journal of Testing and Evaluation, Vol. 35, No. 3

Paper ID JTE100180
Available online at: www.astm.org

Raghu V Prakash1 and Chow Shing Shin2

An Evaluation of Stress-Strain Property

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Prediction by Automated Ball Indentation
共ABI兲 testing
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ABSTRACT: Automated ball-indentation tests were performed on a duplex stainless steel 共2205兲 and on a high-strength Al-Cu alloy 共2014-T651兲
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using a tungsten carbide 共TC兲 spherical ball indenter to derive the materials’ stress-strain parameters, which were validated with standard tensile
specimen data. Test method and data analysis procedures, as proposed by Haggag et al. 关1兴 in a previous research publication, were followed. During
analysis, we observed some interesting details, such as the existence of a linear relationship between the maximum applied compressive force and the
plastic depth of penetration for a given material, a relationship between force and plastic diameter of indentation, and a unique relationship between
plastic diameter of indentation and plastic depth of indentation, which is independent of the material being evaluated. The correlation between ABI
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derived stress-strain data and tensile stress-strain data was reasonable for duplex stainless steel, whereas the correlation was not good in the case of
Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651. This work suggests the need to improve the formulations, taking into account the properties of indenter and indenting
material, as well as the need to account for events such as sink-in and pile-up that take place during indentation.
KEYWORDS: automated ball indentation, spherical indenter, duplex stainless steel, aluminum-copper alloy
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Introduction terial and at the same time ensure that the small sample of material
is good enough to conduct experiments using miniature samples.
Extending the operating life of a component, structure, or system of One more aspect remains to be considered: that of correlating the
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components has been one of the hot topics discussed by technolo- mechanical properties evaluated from miniature samples to stan-
gists and plant operators worldwide. It is pertinent to note that dard specimen geometries.
many of these components were designed at a time when fracture In situ and semi-invasive testing appears a reasonable option to
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mechanics concepts were not practiced, and the understanding of evaluate the mechanical properties of materials in service. The au-
the material behavior under the combined action of mechanical, tomated ball-indentation 共ABI兲 test method proposed by Haggag et
chemical, and thermal exposure was not well understood. al. 关1兴 promises to be an appropriate test method to characterize
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While assessing the residual life of critical safety components
that operate under mechanical and thermal/corrosive environ-
ments, it is important to recognize that the material has already un-
mechanical properties such as yield strength, flow properties, strain
hardening exponent, strength coefficient, and fracture toughness.
The ABI test method offers the advantage of evaluating the strength
of welds with large heat affected zones. Testing can be performed
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dergone significant changes due to embrittlement, micro-cracks,

voids, etc., and has lost significant strength and ductility. As a re- under laboratory conditions as well as in the field to evaluate the
sult, it would be imprudent to consider the base material property strength of large pipes.
as the basis for calculating the life. In consideration of the advantages indicated by the automated
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In recent years, several advances have been made in material ball-indentation test method, ABI testing was used conceptually to
property evaluation for components working under the worst com- evaluate the mechanical properties of two materials: a duplex stain-
bination of thermal, corrosive environments. These advances relate less steel 共2205兲 and an aircraft grade Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651. Dur-
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to the evaluation of tensile strength, fracture toughness and impact ing experimentation and post-processing of data using the empiri-
strength. If the component is already in service and cannot be cal formulations suggested in Ref. 关1兴, we found some interesting
spared for evaluation studies, it is impractical to obtain specimens observations, and this paper discusses some of those observations
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that conform to one of the ASTM or equivalent standards in order that need further investigation.
to evaluate the mechanical properties. Also, in many cases, me-
chanical property evaluation must be performed either in situ,
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through semi-invasive test methods, or by sampling a very small
quantity of material from the component while it remains in service
to evaluate its mechanical properties. In the case of such material
Automated Ball-Indentation Test Technique
Automated ball indentation can be considered to be a part of the
instrumented indentation testing known by several names such as
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sampling, one has to exercise care so as to ensure the safe function-

ing of the component even after removal of a small amount of ma-
Manuscript received April 28, 2005; accepted for publication August 2, 2006.
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Ma-
dras, Chennai 600 036, India.
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei
10617, Taiwan, R.O.C.
depth-sensing indentation, continuous-recording indentation,
micro-indentation and, in cases where thin films are evaluated, as
nano-indentation 共or兲 ultra-low load indentation. This is a relatively
new form of mechanical testing, developed over the last two de-
cades; the technique employs high-resolution instrumentation to
continuously control and monitor the force and displacement of an
indenter as it is loaded and unloaded from the test material 关2兴.

Copyright © 2007 by ASTM International, 100 Barr Harbor Drive, PO Box C700, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959. 1
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FIG. 1—Schematic of an instrumented indentation test set-up 关2兴.
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Based on the force-displacement trace, several details such as
stress-strain properties, fracture toughness, and hardness can be de-
rived. Figure 1 presents a schematic of instrumented indentation
testing.
Two different types of indenters are normally considered for in-
strumented indentation testing: sharp indenters 共pyramids and self-
similar cones兲 and blunt indenters such as spherical indenters.
While selecting indenters for testing, attention must be paid to in-
denter shape as the indentation process produces a complex strain
field underneath the indenter. Often a characteristic strain param-
eter 共␧兲 is used to represent the strain field below the indenter. For
sharp indenters the characteristic strain is constant and is indepen-
dent of the applied force or the displacement inside the material.
The characteristic strain is given by:
␧ = 0.2 cot共␸兲
where ␸ is the half-included angle of the indenter for cones. In the
case of pyramids, ␸ is the half-included angle of the cone having
the same area-to-depth relationship 关3,4兴.
In the case of spherical indenters, the characteristic strain
change continuously as the indenter penetrate into the material and
is given by:
␧ = 0.2共a/R兲
where a is the radius of contact, and R is the radius of the indenter.
This expression was originally proposed by Tabor 关3兴 and is used
for the estimation of strain in automated ball indentation testing.
The advantage of using a spherical indenter is that it permits
incremental measurement of strain hence spherical indenters are
useful in instances where stress-strain parameters must be charac-
terized for a material. This indenter shape also permits, in principle,
methodology to estimate the yield stress, elastic modulus and
strain-hardening behavior of a material in a single test. However, as
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plasticity commences well below the surface 关3,4兴, the point of ini-
tial yielding can be difficult to determine experimentally. Complete
plasticity is achieved in elastic-perfectly plastic materials when
兵Era / ␴yR其 ⬎ 30 关5兴, where ␴y is the yield strength of the material
subjected to indentation loading and Er is the effective modulus as
defined by:
共1/Er兲 = 关共1 − ␯s2兲/Es兴Specimen + 关共1 − ␯2i 兲/Ei兴Indenter 共3兲
where ␯ and E represent the materials’ Poisson’s ratio and elastic
modulus, respectively, and the subscript “s” denotes specimen ma-
terial and “i” denotes indenter material. The contact radius 共a兲 and
the penetration depth at which full plasticity is achieved are smaller
for spherical indenters with smaller radii 共R兲.
Haggag et al. 关6兴 derived a series of expressions to estimate
stresses and strains based on the depth of penetration. ABI test pro-
cedure involves a number of loadings and unloadings of test mate-
rial with accurate measurement of local displacement and applied
force. Figure 2 presents a photograph of the test setup and a typical
load-unload trace obtained during testing 关6兴. It may be noted that if
the material behaves in a perfectly elastic manner underneath the
indenter during force application, the force-displacement trace dur-
ing loading and unloading will be a single curve. However, if the
material behaves in an elastic-plastic manner with strain hardening,
the force-displacement traces during loading and unloading re-
sponse will be different. Generally, two events happen during in-
strumented indentation testing: 共a兲 the plastic flow of material
around the indenter and 共b兲 the material spring-back effect after the
applied force is removed from the sample. Plastic flow can occur
either through sink-in or pile-up around the indenter and is depen-
dent on the basic material properties such as ratio of yield stress to
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Young’s modulus and work-hardening behavior. It may be noted
that sink-in results in a smaller diameter of indentation, while
pile-up gives a larger apparent diameter of indentation 共Fig. 3兲.
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Theoretically, a spherical ball of diameter D that is penetrating a
slab of material to a depth of ht, would leave an impression diam-
eter given by:
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Dtheoretical = dt 共based on total depth of penetration兲
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= 2共htD − h2t 兲0.5 共4兲
共1兲
where ht is the total depth of penetration.
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However, upon releasing the load, partial elastic recovery takes
place 共as shown schematically in Fig. 3兲 and at the end, leaves be-
hind a plastic depth of indentation. The plastic component of dis-
placement is estimated from the force-displacement trace 共this is
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the local displacement measured at a point close to specimen defor-
mation, and hence the displacement measurements can be consid-
ered to be representative of specimen deformation兲 by linear ex-
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共2兲 trapolation of unloading data from the peak compressive load. This
displacement 共hp兲 is used to derive the diameter of indentation. The
plastic diameter of penetration 共dp兲 can be estimated, theoretically,
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using an equation similar to Eq. 4 listed earlier. However, consider-
ing the plastic pile-up of material, the apparent diameter would be
larger than the theoretically estimated diameter. This has been de-
rived using the following equations 关6兴:
dp = 兵0.5 CD关h2p + 共dp/2兲2兴/关h2p + 共dp/2兲2 − hpD兴其1/3
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FIG. 2—共a兲 In situ automated ball-indentation test setup used for material property characterization and b兲 typical force-displacement trace obtained during ABI
testing of 347 SS weld pipe 关6兴. Inset photo in 共a兲 is an enlargement of 100-mm-diameter pipe with a 20-mm chuck holding a 1.57-mm-diameter indenter and a
displacement transducer mounted on a supporting bracket.
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C = 5.47 P共1/E1 + 1/E2兲 共5兲 of respective materials. Further, the maximum force that causes a
given plastic depth of indentation is considered in the evaluation of
plastic diameter of indentation.
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where E1=Elastic modulus of indenter material
E2=Elastic modulus of test material
P=peak compressive force applied.
It may be noted that during indentation, for a given force, soft
materials could result in larger plastic diameters than harder mate-
rials. The equations listed above appear to account for the stiffness
of the indenter and indenting materials through the elastic modulus
From the plastic diameter of indentation, plastic strain 共␧p兲 is
estimated based on Tabor’s formulation of plastic strain as:
␧p = 0.2 dp/D 共6兲
Average flow stress 共␴t兲 underneath the indenter is estimated with
the following equations:

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FIG. 3—Schematic describing the plastic pile-up, sink-in behavior of materials under indenter force. Photograph on the right suggests a sink-in behavior under the
loading action of a spherical indenter 关7兴. Pile-up 共or兲 sink-in is influenced by effective elastic modulus, yield strength, and strain-hardening behavior of material.
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␴t = 4P/共␲d2p␦兲 spherical ball of nominal diameter, 1.57 mm, was inserted into a
specially formed cup, and the cup was screw mounted inside a shaft

冦
to ensure zero-backlash of the spherical ball during loading and
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1.12 ⌽ⱕ1
unloading.
␦ = 1.12 + ␶ ln ⌽ ⌽ ⱕ 27 Indentation testing involves measurement of submicron level
␦max ⌽ ⬎ 27 displacements and Newton level forces to provide force-
displacement data during controlled load-unload testing. Adequate
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⌽ = ␧pE2/0.43␴t care must be taken to ensure that the entire loading arrangement is
stiff and free from backlash. In the present research work, the
␦max = 2.87␣m spherical ball indenter holder was attached to a rigid collet, which,
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␶ = 共␦max − 1.12兲/ln共27兲
In the above formulation, a few parameters 共such as ␦, ␣m兲 are de-
in turn, was attached to one end of the test machine. The collet was
designed with a small taper angle, and the ball indenter holder was
共7兲
held tight in place through an external lock-nut. The bottom fixture
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consisted of a simple compression platen with provision to attach

pendent on the depth of indentation, on the development of plastic one arm of a high-precision extensometer. The other arm of the ex-
zone below the indenter, and on the strain-rate sensitivity of the tensometer was attached to the top fixture. Thus, the distance
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material. Strain rate affects the strain hardening behavior of a ma-
terial and as a consequence the flow stress of a material beneath the
indenter. It may be noted that most of the automated ball indenta-
tion tests are performed under very low loading rate 共⬍0.5
moved by the two arms provides information on local displace-
ments at the indenter during testing. Figure 4 presents a photograph
of the test setup used for automated ball indentation testing.
The test sequence for automated ball indentation was pro-
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mm/ min兲, thus simulating a quasi-static loading of material be- grammed through computer-controlled software. Tests were per-
neath the indenter. formed under actuator displacement control. It may be noted that
The stress-strain behavior of the material is estimated using the indentation tests can be performed either under force control or dis-
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following equation: placement control with continuous measurement of force-local dis-

placement. Testing either under force control or displacement con-
␴t = K␧np 共8兲 trol does not affect the strain rate underneath the indenter in the
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where K is the strength coefficient, n is the strain-hardening expo- case of pure elastic loading. However, testing under force control
nent, and ␧p is the plastic strain. for conditions of elastic-plastic loading applies a higher rate of
It is worth mentioning that ASTM subcommittee E28.06 is pres- strain during loading for material beneath the indenter post-yield,
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ently working on two draft documents: “WK381 – Standard Test
Methods for Automated Ball Indentation Testing of Metallic
Samples and Structures to Determine Stress-Strain Curves and
which could distort the stress-strain response of the material. Based
on the above, experiments were conducted under displacement con-
trol with a programmed slow rate of loading of the indenter on the
test specimen. Ideally, experiments should be performed as: load-
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Ductility at Various Test Temperatures” and “WK382 – Practice for

Instrumented Indentation Testing.” ing under conditions of controlled local displacement 共i.e., dis-
placement near the indenter tip—extensometer control in the
present case兲 and unloading to about 50 % of the maximum com-
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Experiments pressive force. However, in view of the complexities involved in

Automated ball-indentation tests were performed on a closed-loop
computer controlled servo-hydraulic test system with test automa-
tion software. Tests were performed on 2205 duplex stainless steel
and on 2014-T651 aluminum whose tensile properties were evalu-
ated earlier using standard specimens. A tungsten carbide 共TC兲
conducting such an experiment, tests were conducted under total
actuator displacement control. Subsequent analysis of actuator dis-
placement versus local displacement suggested a unique relation-
ship once the sample is loaded, thus implying a proportional con-
stant rate of strain at the indenter.
For better resolution of displacement, the actuator displacement

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FIG. 4—Schematic of automated ball indentation test setup.
range as well as the force transducer range was scaled down to
10 % of its full-range 共i.e., 10-mm displacement and 10-kN force兲.
The ramp rate for compression loading of 0.005 mm/ min was pro-
grammed. The test sequence was programmed for a step loading of
0.05 mm 共50 ␮m兲 with an unloading of up to 80 % of the previous
loading. Partial unloading permits us to estimate the unloading
slope of the sample, thereby providing an estimate of the plastic
component of depth of penetration. A number of load-unload
cycles were programmed for the test, until a compression force of
about 10 kN was reached. Some of the test parameters were pro-
grammed after verifying the data obtained through repeat tests on
the same sample at multiple locations. As the first contact distance
with the specimen is not known a priori, the indenter was placed
close to the specimen and series of load-unload segments were pro-
grammed in actuator displacement control. Care was taken to en-
sure that the specimen was not pre-loaded during specimen mount-
ing.
Results and Analysis
A typical load-unload response obtained on a 2205 duplex steel is
shown in Fig. 5. Figure 6 presents the machine displacement versus
specimen displacement measured during testing.
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The unloading slope for each force step was estimated over an
unloading window that ranges from 95 % of the maximum force to
70 % of the maximum force. This was done to eliminate the distor-
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tion of slope data due to nonlinearities that occur at higher depths of
indentation. The slope line was extended to intersect the x axis to
obtain plastic depth of penetration. Figure 7 presents the load-
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unload trace with linear fit for the 95– 70 % segment and the inter-
cept with the x axis.
Figure 8 provides data on plastic depth of penetration 共hp兲 ver-
sus maximum force 共Pmax兲 applied during automated ball-
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indentation testing. It may be noted that the force versus depth of
penetration data present a distinct straight line behavior over a
lower range of force that corresponds to the force below the knee
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point in the force-displacement response. The response thereafter
becomes nonlinear. One could infer that the depth of penetration
for intermediate forces can be estimated from this curve, if data are
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available for two or more load-unload events. This eliminates the
need for frequent loading and unloading as has been followed in
Haggag et al.’s 关6兴 work. Interestingly, force-depth of penetration
response was observed to be similar for multiple tests that were
performed on duplex 2205 steel.
To study if this linear response between applied maximum force
versus plastic depth of indentation is representative of a material,
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FIG. 5—Typical force-specimen displacement response obtained during automated ball-indentation testing on 2205 duplex steel.
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data obtained from the literature 关6兴 and data obtained from our depth of penetration during multiple tests on 2205 duplex stainless
own experiments on 2014-T651 were plotted on the same graph. steel.
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The linear trend between force-plastic depths of indentation was
observed to be characteristic of a material.
From the derived plastic depth of indentation, the diameter of
plastic indentation was estimated using the set of equations pro-
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Figure 11 presents the stress-strain response for 2205 duplex
steel obtained using the set of equations suggested in Ref. 关6兴. It
may be noted that the parameter ␦max of 2.87 was used for the com-
putation of stress by substituting the flow-stress based parameter

vided in Ref. 关6兴. Figure 9 presents the results of plastic diameter as ␣m to be 1.0. Analysis of data suggests that in almost all cases ⌽
a function of the applied force for the duplex stainless steel tested. were greater than 27; hence, the use of ␦max as 2.87 was found to be
Figure 10 presents the correlation of plastic diameter with plastic valid.
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FIG. 6—Specimen displacement vs actuator displacement obtained during automated ball-indentation testing on 2205 duplex steel.

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FIG. 7—Straight line fitting of force—local displacement data over the 95 % Pmax to 70 % Pmax window to obtain the plastic height of indentation for 2205 duplex
stainless steel.
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It may be noted that at an intermediate strain range of 0.08–0.12 elongation at failure along the direction of extrusion. Figure 12 pre-
共8 – 12 % 兲, the correlation of tensile stress-strain data with data ob-
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sents a typical force versus indenter displacement record obtained

tained from multiple tests of automated ball-indentation testing ap- during testing on Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651 samples. A force versus
pears to be good. At low strain ranges, the stress values appear to be plastic depth of penetration graph for this material is shown in Fig.
less than the reference curve, while at higher strains, the stress val- 8. Force versus plastic diameter of indentation for this material is
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ues estimated by the automated ball-indentation technique appear presented in Fig. 9.

to be higher. This aspect needs examination. Stress-strain data obtained through automated ball-indentation
Automated ball-indentation tests were also performed on a tests were plotted and compared with standard specimen tensile
stress-strain data 关8兴 共Fig. 13兲. This figure shows that the stress-
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high-strength extruded Al-Cu alloy, 2014-T651, having average

yield strength of about 400 MPa, UTS of 480 MPa, and about 9 % strain data obtained from automated ball indentation testing does
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FIG. 8—Force vs plastic height of displacement obtained on 2205 duplex steel during automated ball indentation testing. Also included in the same graph are data
derived from Haggag et al.’s paper 关6兴 and test results obtained on 2014-T651 alloy. The slope is dependent on the materials, yet unique for a given material.

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FIG. 9—Plastic diameter of indentation 共dp兲 vs applied maximum force, automated ball-indentation test for 2205 duplex stainless steel. Also shown in the same figure
are data for Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651 共L168兲 tested in the same experimental setup.

not compare well with the standard specimen tensile stress-strain dard tensile stress-strain data and ABI estimated stress-strain data,
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data. The strain estimated by the ABI technique appears to be we examined the force-displacement plot for 2014-T651 and 2205
greater, and the stress values do not match up to the strain levels. duplex stainless steel. As shown in Fig. 14, the force-indenter dis-
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Interestingly, standard specimen tensile data suggests specimen
failure at a strain corresponding to 9 %, while ball-indentation data
are available even at much higher strain levels. It may be noted that
in the computation of strain, dp is the primary parameter, which is
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placement record for the two materials are distinctly different—
Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651 showing a larger indenter displacement for
an applied force than 2205 duplex stainless steel. The unloading
slope for the two materials is also different, as shown in Fig. 14.

dependent on the elastic modulus of the test material, indenter ma- The force versus plastic height of penetration 共hp兲 graph 共Fig. 8兲
terial, and peak force applied to cause a plastic height of penetra- suggests a unique material-related depth of penetration for 2014-
tion 共hp兲. T651 and 2205 duplex steel. This observation confirms that our ex-
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In an attempt to examine the observed difference between stan- perimental methods are able to sense different materials and are
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FIG. 10—Plastic diameter of indentation vs plastic displacement data for 2205 duplex stainless steel. Multiple test results suggest a unique relationship between the
two parameters, implying a good repeatability in material response.

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FIG. 11—Comparison of data obtained through automated ball-indentation testing with tensile data of 2205 duplex stainless steel. At low strain values, the corre-
lation appears to be less, while at intermediate strain values a reasonable correlation exists between reference data and ABI data.

repeatable 共as confirmed by the force versus hp data for multiple 共plastic depth of penetration兲, a unique diameter of indentation ex-
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tests on the same material兲. We also looked at the force versus dp ists. This indentation diameter is independent of the material being
graph for 2014-T651 and 2205 duplex stainless steel 共Fig. 9兲. This tested. This also indicates that the equations used for the computa-
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graph also confirms the existence of a unique material relationship.
This implies that there could be a lack of correlation for Al-Cu
alloy in the estimation of stress values, or in the estimation of strain
level, or both. We further examined this aspect by plotting the hp
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tion of dp have not been effective in simulating the different mate-
rials’ behavior.
Figure 16 presents the plot of theoretical dp 共based on hp and
spherical geometric conditions兲 versus dp computed using Hag-

versus dp data for Al alloy 2014-T651 and 2205 duplex steel. It can gag’s equations. This figure demonstrates that there is a constant
be noted from Fig. 15 that dp versus hp data for both materials fall in slope between the dp computed based on geometric conditions and
a single scatter band; this observation implies that for a given hp dp based on Haggag’s equations.
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FIG. 12—Typical force vs indenter displacement record obtained during ball-indentation testing on Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651.

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FIG. 13—Stress-strain response estimated from ball-indentation testing and computed using Haggag et al.’s method 关6兴 compared with standard tensile stress-strain
data of 2014-T651 Al-Cu alloy.

The above observations suggest that Haggag’s equations based diameter of indentation, and correction factor for flow stress in ABI
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on hp need refinement to account for different materials. Haggag’s testing does not provide a good stress-strain correlation. This lack
equation, though simple to estimate the plastic diameter of inden- of correlation was observed in multiple ABI tests. Additional
tation, does not seem to account for different materials’ behavior analysis is in progress to establish a correlation between material
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共such as sink-in and pile-up兲 and does not appear to consider the stress-strain properties with automated ball-indentation test results.
different elastic properties of materials accurately. Our test experi-
ence with two different materials suggests that while Haggag’s for-
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mulation works reasonably well for steel, the same method does not Summary
produce similar quality results for Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651. First,
the strain level estimated from ABI testing based on plastic diam- Automated ball-indentation tests were carried out on two different
eter of indentation always suggests a high order of plastic strain; materials: 2205 duplex steel and 2014-T651 Al-Cu alloy. Force-
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secondly, the stress computation based on maximum force, plastic displacement data were analyzed to obtain the material stress-strain
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FIG. 14—Force vs indenter displacement plot for Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651 共L168兲 and 2205 duplex stainless steel. The two materials show a distinct behavior under
ball indentation loading as can be seen from displacement for a given force and slope of loading and unloading segments.

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FIG. 15—Plastic height of indenter vs plastic diameter of indenter for two different materials 共2205 duplex stainless steel and Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651共L168兲兲 tested
by automated ball-indentation method. dp calculated by Haggag et al.’s formula 关6兴. Note the unique relationship between hp and dp for two different materials.
[J

behavior using the set of equations suggested by Haggag et al. 关6兴 indentation diameter for each material tested. The analysis also
A good correlation was observed with tensile stress-strain data suggests that for a given plastic depth of penetration, a unique plas-
and ABI derived stress-strain properties for duplex steel. However, tic diameter of indentation exists and it is independent of the mate-
TE

there was a lack of correlation for Al-Cu alloy 2014-T651. During rial being tested. This suggests that the equations used for compu-
data analysis, a linear dependence between applied maximum com- tation of plastic diameter of indentation must be refined to account
pressive force and plastic depth of penetration was observed, and for different materials being tested. Equations to derive the plastic
10

this relationship is unique for a given material. Further, we ob- diameter of indentation also must account for sink-in and pile-up
served that there is a unique relationship between force and plastic material behavior upon unloading of the spherical ball indenter.
01
80
]0
02
70
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FIG. 16—Theoretical plastic diameter of indentation vs plastic diameter of indentation computed using Haggag et al.’s formula 关6兴. Note a constant slope between the
two sets of data irrespective of the material being tested 共2014-T651 Al-Cu alloy and 2205 duplex stainless steel.

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12 JOURNAL OF TESTING AND EVALUATION

Acknowledgments ford, 1951, pp. 46, 67–83, 105–106.

This work was supported by National Science Council grant NSC-
90-2811-E002-041 and performed at the Fatigue & Fracture Labo-
ratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan
University, Taipei, R.O.C. during the visiting assignment of the first
PR
author.
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