On the use of instrumented indentation to characterize the mechanical properties of functionally graded binary alloys manufactured by additive manufacturing

• Published in: Materials today communications Vol. 25; p. 101451
• Main Authors: Schneider-Maunoury, C., Albayda, A., Bartier, O., Weiss, L., Mauvoisin, G., Hernot, X., Laheurte, P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2020; Elsevier
• Subjects: Additive manufacturing; Chemical Sciences; Functionally graded material; Instrumented indentation test; Material chemistry; Tensile test; Titanium-niobium alloys; Additive manufacturing; Instrumented indentation test; Functionally graded material; Tensile test; Titanium-niobium alloys
• ISSN: 2352-4928; 2352-4928
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mtcomm.2020.101451

•A Ti-xNb FGM (where x=0, 26, 48, 75 and 100%) was builded by CLAD® additive manufacturing process.•The Young’s modulus and the work hardening law of each part of the FGM was obtained from instrumented indentation.•A good correlation between the mechanical properties obtained from tensile test and indentation was obtained.•For all compositions of the Ti-Nb FGM, Young’s Modulus values obtained from IIT are consistent with results from literature. The mechanical properties of a Ti-xNb functionally graded material (FGM) created by using an additive manufacturing process (CLAD®) were obtained using a spherical instrumented indentation test (IIT). The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the great suitability of the indentation test coupled with FGM for not only obtaining the hardness of a material, but also obtaining other mechanical properties such as Young’s modulus, yield stress and the work-hardening exponent for heterogeneous materials. In the first step, results obtained from the instrumented indentation test were compared with those obtained from the tensile test for the same materials. These results show that these two tests highlight a similar evolution in the mechanical properties. In the second step, and after validating the efficiency of the IIT in obtaining mechanical properties, the FGM Ti-xNb was successfully identified using only IIT. This paper demonstrates that the different mechanical properties of all the compositions of a phase diagram can be measured very easily and quickly while minimizing the number of samples.