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Extracting the elastic and viscoelastic properties of a polymeric film using a sharp indentation relaxation test

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Abstract

A new approach is proposed to extract the elastic and viscoelastic properties of a polymeric film on a hard substrate using a sharp indentation relaxation test. In the theoretic formulation, a sharp indentation relaxation test on a film/substrate system was interpreted by its equivalent flat-ended punch indentation relaxation test. The radius of the equivalent flat-ended punch was determined by the residual depth of the sharp indentation. A semi-analytical solution for a flat-ended punch relaxation test was derived. Sharp indentation relaxation tests on a polymethyl methacrylate film and a polycarbonate film on a glass substrate were performed. The semi-analytical solution and the experimental results were used to extract the elastic-viscoelastic parameters of the films. The extracted elastic-viscoelastic parameters of both films were found to be in a good agreement with data sheets of the films. The proposed approach provides a simple and yet feasible way to extract “film-only” elastic and viscoelastic properties.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of, Singapore, Singapore, 119260

    C. Y. Zhang & Y. W. Zhang

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 119260

    K. Y. Zeng

  3. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Singapore, 117602

    L. Shen

  4. Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore, 117528

    Y. Y. Wang

Authors
  1. C. Y. Zhang
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  2. Y. W. Zhang
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  3. K. Y. Zeng
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  4. L. Shen
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  5. Y. Y. Wang
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Correspondence to Y. W. Zhang.

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Zhang, C.Y., Zhang, Y.W., Zeng, K.Y. et al. Extracting the elastic and viscoelastic properties of a polymeric film using a sharp indentation relaxation test. Journal of Materials Research 21, 2991–3000 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2006.0395

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2006.0395

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