Other

Japan As Represented by Director General of National Research Institute for Metals

Nobuo Nagashima

Kensuke Miyahara

Saburo Matsuoka

An ultra micro indentation testing apparatus comprises: a lever stand provided with a center lever having a silicon probe and a diamond indenter disposed therein; a moving mechanism for moving the lever stand in a triaxial direction; in indentation mechanism for pushing the diamond indenter in a sample; a displacement gage for measuring a displacement of the silicon probe or the diamond indenter; and an optical picture device for positioning the silicon probe or the diamond indenter and observing the surface of the sample. The apparatus has, in combination, a hardness measuring function based on the measurement of the force and depth of the diamond indenter pushed in the surface of the sample, an atomic force microscopic function of acquiring the shape of the surface of the sample based on a displacement of the diamond indenter or the silicon probe, and an optical microscopic function of observing the surface of the sample by the optical picture device. Furthermore, the testing apparatus is equipped with both the function of measuring the hardness of the surface of material in a ultra micro region and the surface observing function with high accuracy.

Ultra micro indentation testing apparatus

A testing method is provided for determining the hardness of a micro region, using indentation curves indicating relations between observed penetration depths and indenting forces when an arbitrary shaped indenter is pushed into standard samples of plural types. The method involves (1) measuring relations between observed penetration depths and indenting forces when the arbitrary shaped indenter is pushed into standard samples of plural types, to prepare the indentation curves, (2) determining a reference function indicative of macro hardness, by standardizing the relations between the indenting forces and macro hardness at the same penetration depth as an index, for the indentation curves of the standard samples of plural types, (3) measuring a relation between the penetration depth and indenting force of an arbitrary sample, and (4) determining the hardness of a micro region from the measured value in step (3) according to the reference function as determined in step (2).

Growing community of inventors

Ibaraki, Japan

Nobuo Nagashima