Relationships between Initial Unloading Slope, Contact Depth, and Mechanical Properties for Spherical Indentation in Linear Viscoelastic Solids

Using analytical and finite element modeling, we examine the relationships between initial unloading slope, contact depth, and mechanical properties for spherical indentation in viscoelastic solids with either displacement or load as the independent variable. We then investigate whether the Oliver-Pharr method for determining the contact depth and contact radius, originally proposed for indentation in elastic and elastic-plastic solids, is applicable to spherical indentation in viscoelastic solids. Finally, the analytical and numerical results are used to answer questions raised in recent literature about measuring viscoelastic properties from instrumented spherical indentation experiments.

Determination of plastic properties by instrumented spherical indentation: Expanding cavity model and similarity solution approach

The present paper aims to develop a robust spherical indentation-based method to extract material plastic properties. For this purpose, a new consideration of-piling-up effect is incorporated into the expanding cavity model; an extensive numerical study on the similarity Solution has also been performed. As a consequence, two semi-theoretical relations between the indentation response and material plastic properties are derived, with which plastic properties of materials can be identified from a single instrumented spherical indentation curve, the advantage being that this approach no longer needs estimations of contact radius with given elastic modulus. Moreover, the inconvenience in using multiple indenters with different tip angles can be avoided. Comprehensive sensitivity analyses show that the present algorithm is reliable. Also, by experimental verification performed oil three typical materials, good agreement of the material properties between those obtained from the reverse algorithm and experimental data is obtained.

On mechanical properties of metallic glass and its liquid vitrification characteristics

A systematic survey of the available data such as elastic constants, density, molar mass, and glass transition temperature of 45 metallic glasses is conducted. It is found that a critical strain controlling the onset of plastic deformation is material-independent. However, the correlation between elastic constants of solid glass and vitrification characteristics of its liquid does not follow a simple linear relation, and a characteristic volume, viz. molar volume, maybe relating to the characteristic size of a shear transformation zone (STZ), should be involved.

Determination Of Plastic Properties By Instrumented Spherical Indentation: Expanding Cavity Model And Similarity Solution Approach

The present paper aims to develop a robust spherical indentation-based method to extract material plastic properties. For this purpose, a new consideration of-piling-up effect is incorporated into the expanding cavity model; an extensive numerical study on the similarity Solution has also been performed. As a consequence, two semi-theoretical relations between the indentation response and material plastic properties are derived, with which plastic properties of materials can be identified from a single instrumented spherical indentation curve, the advantage being that this approach no longer needs estimations of contact radius with given elastic modulus. Moreover, the inconvenience in using multiple indenters with different tip angles can be avoided. Comprehensive sensitivity analyses show that the present algorithm is reliable. Also, by experimental verification performed oil three typical materials, good agreement of the material properties between those obtained from the reverse algorithm and experimental data is obtained.

Mechanical and chemical bonding properties of ground state BeH2

The crystal structure, mechanical properties and electronic structure of ground state BeH2 are calculated employing the first-principles methods based on the density functional theory. Our calculated structural parameters at equilibrium volume are well consistent with experimental results. Elastic constants, which well obey the mechanical stability criteria, are firstly theoretically acquired. The bulk modulus B, Shear modulus G, Young's modulus E, and Poisson's ratio upsilon are deduced from the elastic constants. The bonding nature in BeH2 is fully interpreted by combining characteristics in band structure, density of states, and charge distribution. The ionicity in the Be-H bond is mainly featured by charge transfer from Be 2s to H 1s atomic orbitals while its covalency is dominated by the hybridization of H 1s and Be 2p states. The Bader analysis of BeH2 and MgH2 are performed to describe the ionic/covalent character quantitatively and we find that about 1.61 (1.6) electrons transfer from each Be (Mg) atom to H atoms.

Structural, mechanical, thermodynamic, and electronic properties of thorium hydrides from first-principles

We perform first-principles calculations of the structural, electronic, mechanical, and thermodynamic properties of thorium hydrides (ThH2 and Th4H15) based on the density functional theory with generalized gradient approximation. The equilibrium geometries, the total and partial densities of states, charge density, elastic constants, elastic moduli, Poisson's ratio, and phonon dispersion curves for these materials are systematically investigated and analyzed in comparison with experiments and previous calculations. These results show that our calculated equilibrium structural parameters are well consistent with experiments. The Th-H bonds in all thorium hydrides exhibit weak covalent character, but the ionic properties for ThH2 and Th4H15 are different due to their different hydrogen concentration. It is found that while in ThH2 about 1.5 electrons transfer from each Th atom to H, in Th4H15 the charge transfer from each Th atom is around 2.1 electrons. Our calculated phonon spectrum for the stable body-centered tetragonal phase of ThH2 accords well with experiments. In addition we show that ThH2 in the fluorite phase is mechanically and dynamically unstable.

Electronic structures and mechanical properties of uranium monocarbide from first-principles LDA plus U and GGA plus U calculations

The electronic structure, elastic constants, Poisson's ratio, and phonon dispersion curves of UC have been systematically investigated from the first-principles calculations by the projector-augmented-wave (PAW) method. In order to describe precisely the strong on-site Coulomb repulsion among the localized U 5f electrons, we adopt the local density approximation (LDA) + U and generalized gradient approximation (GGA) + U formalisms for the exchange correlation term. We systematically study how the electronic properties and elastic constants of UC are affected by the different choice of U as well as the exchange-correlation potential. We show that by choosing an appropriate Hubbard U parameter within the GGA + U approach, most of our calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental data. Therefore. the results obtained by the GGA + U with effective Hubbard parameter U chosen around 3 eV for UC are considered to be reasonable. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Study on mechanical properties of GaN epitaxy films grown on sapphire by MOCVD

GaN epitaxy films were grown on (0001) oriented sapphire substrate by metal-organic vapor deposition(MOCVD). AFM and SEM were used to analyze the surface morphology of GaN films. Hardness and critical load of GaN films were measured by an nano-indentation tester, friction coefficient by reciprocating UMT-2MT tribometer. It is found that the surface of GaN film is smooth and the epitaxial growth mechanism is in two-dimension mode, GaN epitaxy films also belong to ultra-hardness materials, whose hardness is 22.1 MPa and elastic modulus is 299.5 GPa. Adhesion strength of epitaxial GaN to sapphire is high, and critical load reaches 1.6 N. Friction coefficient against GCr15 ball is steadily close to 0.13, while GaN films turns to be broken rapidly by using Si3N4 ceramic ball as counterpart.

Assessment of the structural properties of GaAs/Si epilayers using X-ray (004) and (220) reflections

We improved the method previously used to determine the lattice constants and misorientation of GaAs/Si by recording the patterns of X-ray (004) and (220) reflections. The (220) reflection was measured from the (110) cross section of a GaAs/Si epilayer. The structural properties of the GaAs/Si epilayers grown by metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition (MOCVD) using an ultrathin a-Si buffer layer were investigated. The rotation angle of GaAs/Si epilayers grown by MOCVD using an a-Si buffer layer is very small and the lattice constants of these GaAs/Si epilayers agree quite well with elastic theory.

Theoretical analysis of the relationships between hardness, elastic modulus, and the work of indentation for work-hardening materials

In our previous paper, the expanding cavity model (ECM) and Lame solution were used to obtain an analytical expression for the scale ratio between hardness (H) to reduced modulus (E-r) and unloading work (W-u) to total work (W-t) of indentation for elastic-perfectly plastic materials. In this paper, the more general work-hardening (linear and power-law) materials are studied. Our previous conclusions that this ratio depends mainly on the conical angle of indenter, holds not only for elastic perfectly-plastic materials, but also for work-hardening materials. These results were also verified by numerical simulations.

The main factor influencing the tensile properties of surface nano-crystallized graded materials

The improved mechanical properties of surface nano-crystallized graded materials produced by surface severe plastic deformation ((SPD)-P-2) are generally owing to the effects of the refined structure, work-hardened region and compressive residual stress. However, during the (SPD)-P-2 process, residual stress is produced simultaneously with work-hardened region, the individual contribution of these two factors to the improved mechanical properties remains unclear. Numerical simulations are carried out in order to answer this question. It is found that work hardening predominates in improving the yield strength and the ultimate tensile strength of the surface nano-crystallized graded materials, while the influence of the residual stress mainly emerges at the initial stage of deformation and decreases the apparent elastic modulus of the surface nano-crystallized graded materials, which agrees well with the experimental results. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A laboratory study of rheological properties of mudflows in Hangzhou Bay, China

A laboratory study of the rheology of mudflows in Hangzhou Bay, China, is reported in this paper. Both the steady and oscillatory (dynamic) rheological properties are studied using RMS-605 rheometer. A Dual-Bingham model is proposed for analyzing flow curves and compared with Worrall-Tuliani model. It is found that Dual-Bingham plastic rheological model is easier to implement than Worrall-Tuliani model and can provide satisfactory representations of the steady mudflows in Hangzhou Bay and other published data. The dependence of the yield stress and viscosity on sediment concentration is discussed based on the data from Hangzhou Bay mud and other published data. For the dynamic rheological properties of Hangzhou Bay mud, empirical expressions for elastic modulus and dynamic viscosity are provided in the form of exponential functions of sediment volume concentration, and comparisons with other published data also discussed.

New parameters of many-body potentials: studying the thermal and mechanical properties of noble metals

New parameters of nearest-neighbor EAM (1N-EAM), n-th neighbor EAM (NN-EAM), and the second-moment approximation to the tight-binding (TB-SMA) potentials are obtained by fitting experimental data at different temperatures. In comparison with the available many-body potentials, our results suggest that the 1N-EAM potential with the new parameters is the best description of atomic interactions in studying the thermal expansion of noble metals. For mechanical properties, it is suggested that the elastic constants should be calculated in the experimental zero-stress states for all three potentials. Furthermore, for NNEAM and TB-SMA potentials, the calculated results approach the experimental data as the range of the atomic interaction increases from the first-neighbor to the sixth-neighbor distance.

Effect of immersion in various media on the sorption, solubility, elution of unreacted monomers, and flexural properties of two model dental composite compositions

Immersion in various media has different effect on the properties of dental composites, such as sorption, solubility, elution of unreacted monomers, flexural strength, and flexural elastic modulus. In the present work, the effect of immersion in various media and the relationship between the variation of these properties and the components of dental composite were investigated.

Ab initio study on the electronic, magnetic, and mechanical properties of CaCu3V4O12

The electronic, magnetic, and mechanical properties of CaCu3V4O12 are investigated by use of the density functional theory method. The calculated results indicate that CaCu3V4O12 is a half-metallic and ferrimagnetic compound. The magnetic coupling for Cu-V is antiferromagnetic, while those for Cu-Cu and V-V are ferromagnetic. The obtained elastic constants suggest that the compound is mechanically stable. The calculated oxidation states and density of states reveal the existence of a mixed valence for Cu and V. This supports the experimental observation of the mixed valence in Ca2+Cu2+Cu2+(V25+V24+)O-12.