Mechanical properties of soft biological materials are dependent on the responses of the two phases of which they are comprised: the solid matrix and interstitial fluid. Indentation techniques are commonly used to measure properties of such materials, but comparisons between different experimental and analytical techniques can be difficult. Most models relating load and time during spherical in...

It has been proposed that with the appropriate models, instrumented indentation test (IIT) data can be reduced to yield the uniaxial stress–strain behavior of the test material. However, very little work has been done to directly compare the results from uniaxial tension and spherical indentation experiments. In this work, indentation and uniaxial tension experiments have been performed on the ...

The mechanical response of plasma-sprayed coatings is studied by recourse to instrumented spherical micro-indentation. It is shown that the elastic moduli of the coatings can be determined in a more reliable and reproducible manner with instrumented spherical indentation than prior (Knoop) indentation methods, while at the same time minimizing damage to the coating during indentation. The resul...

The effect of geometry on cell stiffness measured with micro-indentation techniques has been explored in single cells, however it is unclear if results on single cells can be readily transferred to indentation experiments performed on a tissue in vivo. Here we explored this question by using simulation models of osmotic treatments and micro-indentation experiments on 3D multicellular tissues wi...

Indentation methodologies are gaining popularity as they provide means of local property estimation, utilize smaller sample sizes, and do not destroy specimens. Classically, indentation has been used to measure hardness and Young’s modulus [1], but researchers have also proposed ways of predicting stress–strain curves [2], yield strength [3], and fracture toughness [3]. Different indentation te...

Nowadays, thanks to the new manufacturing processes, indentation is becoming an essential part of the new arising processes such as the Incremental Forming Processes. This work presents the experimental validation of the analytical model developed for an indentation-based process. The analytical model is originated from the Upper Bound Theorem application by means of its new modular distributio...

The effects of environmental exposure upon the loadbearing properties of nine polyurethane foams commonly used for wheelchair cushion construction were studied. Test pieces with and without a stretch cloth cover were aged in the open air at Houston over the period April 26 to October 31, 1982. The indentation resistance of each piece was measured initially and at frequent intervals during the e...

In this paper, a methodology is presented for obtaining the plastic anisotropy of bulk metallic materials using cross-sectional indentation. This method relies on spherical indentation on the free edge of a specimen, and examining the out-of-plane residual deformation contour persisting on the cross-section after unloading. Results obtained from numerical simulation revealed that some important...

A comprehensive computational study was undertaken to identify the extent to which elastoplastic properties of ductile materials could be determined from instrumented sharp indentation and to quantify the sensitivity of such extracted properties to variations in the measured indentation data. Large deformation finite element computations were carried out for 76 different combinations of elasto-...

Mechanical properties and deformation of the vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays (VA-CNTs) has been examined with large-displacement indentation tests inside a scanning electronic microscope (SEM). The in-situ indentation allows for establishment of the load-depth responses and real-time observations of the deformation processes. Under a cylindrical, flat indenter, the VA-CNTs exhibit ela...