The high-temperature hardness test has a wide range of applications, but lacks test standards. The purpose of this study is to develop a finite element method (FEM) model of the relationship between the high-temperature hardness and high-temperature, quasi-static compression experiment, which is a mature test technology with test standards. A high-temperature, quasi-static compression test and ...

Indentation techniques for assessing fracture toughness are attractive due to the simplicity and expediency of experiments, and because they potentially allow the characterization of both local and bulk fracture properties. Unfortunately, rarely have such techniques been proven to give accurate fracture toughness values. This is a concern, as such techniques are seeing increasing usage in the s...

This study investigated the effects of deposition techniques on the microstructural and tribological properties of Ti/TiN/TiCN/TiAlN multilayer coatings onto a Custom 450 steel substrate. The coatings were produced using cathodic arc physical vapor deposition (CAPVD) and plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition (PACVD). The microstructural of the coatings was evaluated using (SEM), and phase f...

Flight feathers have evolved under selective pressures to be sufficiently light and strong enough to cope with the stresses of flight. The feather shaft (rachis) must resist these stresses and is fundamental to this mode of locomotion. Relatively little work has been done on rachis morphology, especially from a mechanical perspective and never at the nanoscale. Nano-indentation is a cornerstone...

Calcium carbonate biominerals are frequently analysed in materials science due to their abundance, diversity and unique material properties. Aragonite nacre is intensively studied, but less information is available about the material properties of biogenic calcite, despite its occurrence in a wide range of structures in different organisms. In particular, there is insufficient knowledge about h...

It is crucial to understand the creep behavior of Pb-free solder alloys in electronic packaging. Typical service environments are between 298 and 373K. The thermal mismatch induced stresses acting on solder joints result in extensive rate-dependent plastic deformation. The solder alloy is potentially the weakest component in the electronic package because normal operating temperatures are alrea...

Time dependent plastic deformation in metals can occur at high temperatures. Typically the creep test is conducted to characterize the deformation features; however, the conventional uniaxial power-law creep test may be impractical for small scale materials. Accordingly, instrumented indentation techniques are frequently employed. This study concerns the employment of instrumented indentation t...