Hardness and flow behaviour of glass in the nanometre range - An Interpretation of the load dependence of the hardness

Abstract

The flow behaviour of glass was investigated by Vickers hardness indentation technique with Variation of the deformation rate by six Orders of magnitude. The hardness tests were carried out on commercial sheet glass with three different loading regimes. A general flow equation in form of a power law was used to describe the deformation behaviour of the materials. The influences of loading mode and deformation rate on the parameters of this law were investigated. An essential result of this work is that the load and Penetration depth dependence of the hardness, respectively, the so-called indentation size effect, is an inevitability of the special methodology of the indentation technique during deformation of strain rate-sensitive materials.