Abstract:
The method called instrumented indentation test (IIT) emerged as a technique capable to characterise several materials in nanoscale, like nanostructural material, thin film, ceramic material, etc., independently of hardness. The acceptation of this new technique requires, of course, reliable test results where, one of the way to obtain this confidence is to knowing the sources of the testing error in order to minimise them. This work has as main objective to present a simple methodology to get one of these sources by a mathematical computation to determining the geometry of the Berkovich diamond indenter used in the IIT focusing on the very tip of this indenter up to 200nm height by adjusting the curves that better describe this range.
