DETERMINING THE ELASTIC MODULUS OF LINEARLY HARDENING ELASTOPLASTIC MATERIALS USING INDENTATION TESTS

Recently, we have proposed an inverse approach to determine the elastic modulus of power-law engineering materials using indentation tests. In this study, we make an attempt to apply the method developed for power-law materials to the elastoplastic materials which exhibit a linearly hardening behaviour. It is found that the errors in the identified elastic modulus have a close relationship with the ratio of the elastic modulus to the yield strength and the linearly hardening parameter m. For the linearly hardening materials with ratios of the elastic modulus to the yield strength less than 45.4，the errors in the identified the elastic modulus are very small. For linearly hardening materials of which the ratios of the elastic modulus to the yield strength larger than 45.4, when the hardening parameter m satisfies the described conditions, the inverse approach developed for power-law materials may be applied to the materials exhibiting linearly hardening behaviours.