Measurement of Mechanical Properties of Small Material Structures by Nanoindentation

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ABSTRACTNanoindentation is an ultra-low load indentation technique that is widelyused to probe the mechanical properties of materials of small volume.This project aims to extend our understanding of the mechanics andmechanisms of nanoindentation on a variety of small material structures,including carbon nanotube forests, thermal barrier coatings, dielectricand metallic thin films, and polymer films. Reverse analysis algorithmswill be developed to extract the intrinsic mechanical properties of smallmaterial systems. The proposed research develops new and improvedunderstanding of the microstructural mechanisms, provides newmethodologies of determining the mechanical properties through simpletests, and results in better models for thin film and other small systems.The broader impacts are through the potential significance of the researcheffort in multi-scale modeling and implementing nanoscience andtechnology. In addition, the proposed research fully integrates with aneducation program that includes undergraduate and graduate enhancement,and the project is further bolstered by collaboration with industry andother universities.