Establishing the Influence of Indentation Size Effect of Industrially Relevant Ti Alloys

The load dependence of the Vickers Micro-Indentation hardness test has been investigated on industrially relevant Titanium alloys such as Ti-5Al-2.5Sn and Ti-6Al-4V. Using loads ranging from 10 gf to 1kgf, it was found that the Titanium alloys exhibits a normal indentation size effect (ISE) where the micro-hardness of the material decreases with load until a plateau is reached. To explore the primary cause of ISE, the experimental data was modeled using; Meyer’s Law, Hays-Kendall Method, Elastic/Plastic Deformation, Proportional Specimen resistance, the Modified Proportional Specimen Resistance, as well as other models. Once the experimental data was fitted to the models, the true hardness was calculated using the matching hardness equation associated with each test.