Estimating Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio by instrumented indentation test

The estimate of Young's modulus from instrumented indentation test results relies on knowing in advance the Poisson's ratio of the sample's material. However, in many cases this information is missing. In this paper we show how an empirical correlation between hardness and elastic moduli, along with the usual instrumented indentation test, allows the estimation of both Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio (and, from them, the bulk and shear moduli) for homogeneous and isotropic samples. The results obtained in this work indicate that the proposed approach represents an improvement over previous practices for the estimation of E and ν from indentation tests, particularly for hard ceramic materials in case no previous information on Poisson's ratio is available.