Learn / Nanoindentation
Nanoindentation
Load, depth,
modulus, hardness,
and what they really mean.
Understand indentation curves, Oliver–Pharr, pop-ins, size effects, modulus extraction, and the limits of what indentation data can justify.
1 · Start here
Build the foundation
2 · Learn the core
Master the key concepts
3 · Use a tool
Work with your data
No Indentation tool yet. The tool workbench has the calculators and simulators that exist today; this lane fills in as they are built.
4 · Solve a problem
Troubleshoot real data
5 · Go deeper
Research-level topics
GuideWhen Your Hardness Number LiesIndentation size effect or a blunt tip? Pile-up wrecking the contact area? Substrate showing through a thin film? Three interactive sandboxes where the true answer is known, so you can watch a clean-looking fit give a wrong number.GuideWhat Indentation Tells You Beyond HardnessSpherical indentation stress–strain curves and the effective zero point, pop-in statistics against the theoretical strength, strain-rate jumps and activation volume, and three fracture-toughness equations that disagree. Interactive.GuideHow to Decide a Loading ModeEight indentation loading schedules side by side: what each one looks like in load–time, what curve it gives you, and (the part nobody plots) what failure looks like in that mode. Plus load versus displacement control, the CSM dynamic model, and a mode chooser. Interactive.GuideWhen Does Oliver-Pharr Fail?Ten ways an Oliver-Pharr hardness goes wrong, run on one synthetic indent where the true answer is known: the failures a curve shows (drift, compliance, creep, the fit window, a step) and the four it hides (blunt tip, pile-up, substrate, roughness), each with its signature and its fix, plus a validity checklist to run before you report a number.
6 · All resources
Every Indentation page
- GuideHow a Hardness Number Gets MadeWhere hardness and modulus actually come from: fit the unloading curve yourself, watch S, hc and the contact area move, and see how much thermal drift, frame compliance and an uncalibrated tip shift the number you report. Interactive.
- GuideWhen Your Hardness Number LiesIndentation size effect or a blunt tip? Pile-up wrecking the contact area? Substrate showing through a thin film? Three interactive sandboxes where the true answer is known, so you can watch a clean-looking fit give a wrong number.
- GuideWhat Indentation Tells You Beyond HardnessSpherical indentation stress–strain curves and the effective zero point, pop-in statistics against the theoretical strength, strain-rate jumps and activation volume, and three fracture-toughness equations that disagree. Interactive.
- GuideHow to Decide a Loading ModeEight indentation loading schedules side by side: what each one looks like in load–time, what curve it gives you, and (the part nobody plots) what failure looks like in that mode. Plus load versus displacement control, the CSM dynamic model, and a mode chooser. Interactive.
- GuideWhen Does Oliver-Pharr Fail?Ten ways an Oliver-Pharr hardness goes wrong, run on one synthetic indent where the true answer is known: the failures a curve shows (drift, compliance, creep, the fit window, a step) and the four it hides (blunt tip, pile-up, substrate, roughness), each with its signature and its fix, plus a validity checklist to run before you report a number.
- FAQTribology, Indentation & Scratch FAQTroubleshooting FAQ for contact mechanics, wear, nanoindentation and scratch testing: real contact area, wear-mechanism competition and wear depth, Oliver-Pharr hardness and its error budget, size effects, loading-mode choice, and scratch critical loads and hardness conventions.
Other fields: TEM & STEM · EBSD & TKD · Atom Probe · Crystallography · Phase Transformations · Tribology · Scratch Testing · In-situ / FIB.