This thesis is dedicated to understanding the micromechanical properties of multiphase materials which are indispensable in today’s engineering applications. The mechanical behavior of these materials is dictated by the intrinsic response of each constitutive phase as well as the fashion in which they interact with each other. Therefore, an accurate assessment of both microstructural characteristics and small-scale mechanical properties becomes key for understanding the macroscopic behavior of these materials.
Within the above context, the current study is intended to offer a systematic investigation, aiming to assess small-scale mechanical properties of multiphase materials through a protocol based on massive nanoindentation and statistical analysis. It consists of three sequential stages: (1) microstructural characterization, (2) micromechanical evaluation (massive indentation and statistical analysis), (3) correlation between microstructure and mechanical properties using advanced characterization techniques.
Microstructural characterization of studied systems was carried out through extensive field emission scanning electron microscopy analysis. This is an essential step for determining testing parameters to be used when implementing massive indentation, particularly penetration depth of performed imprints. Based on the acquired information, massive indentation testing and statistical analysis of experimentally gathered data were implemented to determine the local properties of several unidentified phases. Such data analysis was then complemented by the use of different advanced characterization techniques for deeper inspection of microstructural features. Main goal of this final step was to define the unidentified mechanically distinct phases, based on physically- based correlations between microstructure features and small-scale properties.
The proposed and described protocol has been implemented on three different materials: Duplex Stainless Steels (DSS), Polycrystalline cubic Boron Nitride (PcBN) composite and Ti(C,N)-FeNi cermets. They are representative of metal-metal, ceramic- ceramic, and ceramic-metal systems, respectively.
Regarding DSS, the influence of the processing route on the local mechanical properties (hardness (H) and elastic modulus (E)) of ¿ and a phases of a DSS was successfully evaluated. Moreover, a novel 2D histogram of hardness and elastic modulus was introduced and validated as an effective tool to correlate microstructure and intrinsic mechanical properties of the constitutive phases of DSSs.
PcBN composite consists of cBN particles embedded within a TiN binder. The correlation of relative B/N ratio and local hardness for individual cBN particles was studied, through complementary analysis using electron probe X-ray microanalysis of the data attained using the proposed methodology.
The influence of ceramic/metal phase ratio and C addition on the local hardness of Ti(C,N)–FeNi cermets have been assessed. Regarding the small-scale properties of the constitutive phases, the intrinsic hardness of both Ti(C,N) particles and FeNi binder were determined using the suggested testing procedure.
It has been proven that the proposed methodology can be considered as a successful testing protocol for determining small-scale mechanical properties (H and E) of the studied multiphase systems. Nevertheless, successful implementation requires careful consideration of testing parameters used, based on microstructural, residual imprint, and plastic flow length scales.
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