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Experimental and theoretical confirmation of the scaling exponent 2 in pyramidal load displacement data for depth
Benoit Merle1, Verena Maier, Karsten Durst
1Materials Science & Engineering, Institute I, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Abstract:
A series of articles by Kaupp et al. have recently been published in "Scanning," containing erroneous claims about the curvature of pyramidal nanoindentation loading curves. The present paper recalls the theoretical reasons why, for self-similar indenter shapes like pyramidal or conical indentations, the load scales with the indentation depth squared. Furthermore, experimental evidence for that behavior is provided for a wide variety of materials, ranging from ceramics to metals and polymers.
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