Microindentation study of Ti–6Al–4V alloy

In order to study the micromechanical behavior of Ti–6Al–4V alloy, microindentation experiments were performed with five different maximum loads of 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300 mN, and with three loading speeds of 6.4560, 7.7473 and 9.6841 mN/s respectively. The experimental results revealed that loading speed has little influence on microhardness and Young’s modulus. Microindentation hardness experiments showed strong indentation size effects, i.e. increase of indentation hardness with the decrease of indentation load or depth. Then microindentation constitutive equation that described the stress as a function of the strain was proposed through dimensional analysis. And the finite element simulation results showed that the predicted computational indentation data from developed constitutive equation can track the microindentation experimental data of Ti–6Al–4V alloy.

Research highlights
► Microindentation study of Ti–6Al–4V alloy was conducted.
► Indentation hardness of Ti–6Al–4V alloy increases with the decrease of indentation load.
► Indentation data from developed constitutive equation can track the experimental data.