Creep and recovery analysis of polymeric materials during indentation tests

The present study describes comparative results obtained experimentally on two polymeric surfaces during contacts with a rigid spherical indenter. An experimental setup specifically dedicated to transparent materials has been used to analyze the creep phenomenon over long holding time segments (105 s) and to study the recovery process once contact has been removed. As a function of imposed contact time, a normalized value of representative strain is defined to quantify creep and recovery steps. Experimental results indicate that the recovery of the deformed surface after contact is mainly dependent on the initial contact time. Finite Elements Modeling will be used to discuss further the time-depending behaviors of the materials.