Influence of Vickers tip imperfection on depth sensing indentation tests

In the last decade, the development of depth sensing indentation equipment has permitted two of the most conventional mechanical properties of materials to be easily determined: hardness and Young’s modulus. Some care is needed to accurate results from the experimental determination of the aforementioned mechanical properties. In this study, numerical simulations were performed on two well-known materials (Bk7 glass, AISI M2 steel) and on fictitious materials with a wide range of mechanical properties, using Vickers indenters with different sizes of tip imperfections. The purpose is to estimate the influence of the size of the defect on the hardness and Young’s modulus results obtained by ultramicro and nanoindentation tests.