Modeling of Vickers indentation of TiAl alloys

G. Maizza, and R. Cagliero
Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino, Italy
Published in 2010

Instrumented indentation is increasingly used as an alternative non-destructive test method to measure mechanical properties of small volumes of materials. In this work, the instrumented indentation test is applied as a non-destructive method to assess the mechanical properties of TiAl components during the setup of a real production process. This study is a preliminary contribution devoted to the development of a suitable computer model to assess an integral methodology which combines indentation experiments with computer simulations. The proposed model using COMSOL is a highly non linear contact structural analysis having a strong singularity at the indenter tip. It utilizes an elasto-plastic constitutive law combined with an experimental indentation stress-strain curve to describe the actual mechanical behaviour of TiAl alloys. The latter is constructed using samples (i.e. disks) of pre-specified composition and microstructure taken from the real process.

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