DETERMINING PLASTIC PROPERTIES OF MATERIAL THROUGH INSTRUMENTED INDENTATION APPROACH

One significant advantage of indentation tests is that this test only requires a small amount of test material, this makes it very attractive for material characterization with gradient properties where standard specimens are not available such as in situ or in vivo. Regarding tests for spot welded joints, standardized testing does not apply to characterize HAZ and nuggets because of their complex structure and small size. This has opened the possibility to characterize material properties based on the Indentation method to characterize inverse parameters of constitutive material laws for nuggets, HAZ and base metals. The numerical approach based on the Finite Element (FE) model has been developed and validated. The established formulation is used for reverse (inverse) prediction of the nature of constitutive material (ie yield stress (?y), strain hardening coefficient (n)) for the welded joint zone namely the nugget, HAZ and parent metals (base). Then able to predict the effect of the nugget size and the thickness of the sheet metal on the strength of the spot welded joint with dissimilar material.