Identification of the elastic-plastic constitutive model for measuring mechanical properties of metals by instrumented spherical indentation test

Several methods for determination of elastic-plastic parameters by instrumented spherical indentation tests have been presented in the past few years. Each method was established according to a specific constitutive model. Identification of the constitutive models of new materials has become an indispensable step in order to choose an appropriate indentation method to extract the elastic-plastic parameters. In the present work, the half depth energy accumulation rate and Meyer's index were related to the elastic-plastic constitutive models via qualitative and numerical analyses. A method for identification of the elastic-plastic constitutive models by instrumented spherical indentation test was proposed.