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Multiscale Instrumented Indentation Techniques for Sustainable Manufacturing and Products

A Special Issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944) belonging to the section "Manufacturing Processes and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2026 | Viewed by 1226

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Guest Editor
Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT), Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: instrumented indentation; additive manufacturing; metallic materials; welding and welded joints; materials and process multiphysics modeling
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The first volume of this Special Issue, titled “Instrumented Indentation Test: An Aiding Tool for Materials Science and Industry”, completed in 2022, contains eleven outstanding contributions and constitutes an invaluable compendium of papers on the fundamentals and novelties of IIT pertaining to scientific research and industry. Its success has encouraged the launch of this second volume, which shares the main goals and missions as the first volume centered around stimulating the application of IIT to (a) progress material science at various scales of the microstructure; (b) further expand the available database on the indentation properties of engineering materials based on the performances directly measured on the manufactured products without sectioning; and (c) provide more appropriate and/or more efficient post-processing procedures of indentation curves to overcome the current ISO 14577 limitations (such as those concerning the testing of engineering materials and products affected by residual stresses, as well as pile-up and sink-in events). Furthermore, on-field or in-line processing case studies, at any stage of the production process, are warmly encouraged in view of their direct impact on the sustainability of future manufacturing processes to achieve more efficient products. Such products may range from mechatronic devices (MEMs, NENs, thin films, and multilayers) to multidimensional metallic, ceramic, or composite parts, including integral additively manufactured elements, welded joints, or foams. The latter, used for more robust testing methods, can account for pressure effects on indentation properties. The macro-instrumented indentation test, although less popular than nanoindentation, deserves more attention, and thus more research studies on its industrial applications are warranted, as it can provide tensile-like properties without any indentation size effect, and it has less stringent requirements on surface roughness than the nanoindentation test. Papers on the latter topic are expected, but additional contributions could be centered around the correlations between indentation properties across multiple scales, as this will help us achieve a better understanding of indentation size effects, material anisotropy, elastoplastic behavior, and the role played by unavoidable short- and long-range residual stresses in engineering materials and products. To promote comparability among residual stress measurements, it is recommended that IIT is performed under displacement control by annexing detailed information on slicing/sectioning (if any) of the original manufactured product and on the indentation modulus, which turns out to be an important indicator of residual stress in materials. 

Prof. Dr. Giovanni Maizza
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • instrumented indentation test, theory and modeling
  • residual stress evaluation using indentation test
  • additive manufacturing
  • materials: conventional bulk as well as nanocrystalline and porous metals and alloys
  • similar and dissimilar welded joints
  • materials behavior: elastoplatic, superplastic, superelastic, recrystallization, creep, anisotropic
  • new in situ and ex situ inspection methodologies aiding materials characterization during manufacturing
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Published Papers (1 paper)

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23 pages, 6549 KB  
Article
Correlation Between Microstructure and Mechanical Performance of an L-PBF 316L Alloy with an ISE-Free Parameter
by Giovanni Maizza, Ahmad Atef Abdullatef Hamed, Alberto Albanese and Maria José Marques
Materials 2026, 19(14), 2932; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma19142932 - 8 Jul 2026
Viewed by 451
Abstract
The optimization and the engineering development of additive manufacturing (AM) products both require accurate, non-destructive techniques to extract their mechanical performances. The Instrumented Indentation Test (IIT) has such a potential, although it currently lacks standard procedures that are suitable for analyzing materials which [...] Read more.
The optimization and the engineering development of additive manufacturing (AM) products both require accurate, non-destructive techniques to extract their mechanical performances. The Instrumented Indentation Test (IIT) has such a potential, although it currently lacks standard procedures that are suitable for analyzing materials which are affected by internal residual stress (RS). Additionally, nanoindentation testing suffers from the presence of indentation size effects (ISE), which hamper the possibility of correlating the measured mechanical performance at different indentation depths or peak loads using the standard indentation hardness (HIT) and modulus (EIT). This paper presents a novel IIT methodology that is based on new indentation parameters, namely the loading stiffness rate (LSR) and the rate-derived hardness (HR), which are then used to assign the desired mechanical performances of an L-PBF 316L austenitic stainless-steel alloy obtained via multiload/multiscale IIT strategy. The mean values of LSR, HR, HIT, and EIT on the macroscale were 57.3 ± 1.4 GPa, 2.33 ± 0.059 GPa, 2.41 ± 0.13 GPa, and 201 ± 7.8 GPa, respectively, whereas on the nanoscale they were 56.1 ± 5.1 GPa, 2.30 ± 0.21 GPa, 3.00 ± 0.36 GPa, and 219 ± 24 GPa, respectively. Unlike the standard HIT, the new indentation parameters of the nano- and macro-IITs are within the standard deviation, proving their ISE-free property. The obtained EIT was slightly higher than the reference Young’s modulus (~190 GPa) of the 316L stainless steel. The loading secant stiffness versus depth plot can be used to assess the susceptibility of RS to relax during indentation, which is an important performance factor for the engineering design of AM components. The successful correlation that has been found between electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis (in terms of crystal anisotropy, grain size, and dislocation density) and nanoindentation testing at three subregions of the core zone of the investigated deposit confirms the validity of the proposed methodology. The proposed methodology is a step towards the full determination of the three Ps, that is, process, properties, and performance of advanced AM products. Full article
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