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Indentation Testing Method for Determining Mechanical Properties and Tensile Flow Curve of High-Strength Rail Steels

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Abstract

Background

Instrumented ball indentation offers a promising approach to determining mechanical properties and tensile stress–strain relationships of materials, non-destructively. Objective: Using indentation load-depth experimentation to determine mechanical properties such as Young’s modulus, yield stress, strain hardening exponent and hardness, and tensile flow curve based on conventional contact mechanics principles.

Method

Nine different rail steel specimens are subjected to instrumented indentation testing (IIT) using an in-house developed ball indentation equipment that considers pile-up effect for effective estimation of the contact area and specimen’s stiffness required for mechanical characterization of the rail steels.

Results

The mechanical property response using micro-scaled ball indentation followed a comparative outcome with tensile test outcomes. The evolution of the hardness across the depth experiences a sudden increase followed by a decrease in hardness which suggests the effect of localized hardening due to indenter size effect mechanism. In order to establish the tensile flow curve via indentation, an adjusting parameter (κ) is included as part of the parameter (ϕ) that describes the development of the plastic zone beneath the indenter tip to correct the effect of multi-axial stresses and increased stresses due to the indenter size effect.

Conclusions

The flow curve via the ball indentation strongly correlates with tensile stress–strain relationship, showing a promising possibility of using non-destructive indentation to determine tensile properties and flow curve for high-strength rail steels.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

This research was made possible through the Canadian Rail Research Laboratory (www.carrl.ca). The funding for this project was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC-IRC 523369-18), the Canadian National Railway, the National Research Council of Canada, and Transport Canada. Dr. Feng Yu also would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 51971113) and Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LY21A020002) for the financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    S.I. Okocha & P.Y.B. Jar

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ningbo University of Technology, Ningbo, People’s Republic of China

    F. Yu

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    M.T. Hendry

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  1. S.I. Okocha
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  2. F. Yu
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Correspondence to S.I. Okocha.

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Okocha, S., Yu, F., Jar, P. et al. Indentation Testing Method for Determining Mechanical Properties and Tensile Flow Curve of High-Strength Rail Steels. Exp Mech 63, 839–852 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-023-00939-w

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