Nanoindentation in multi-modal map combinations: A Correlative Approach to Local Mechanical Property Assessment

TL;DR

This paper introduces a correlative method combining nanoindentation, EBSD, and EPMA maps for detailed microstructural property analysis at micron scale, demonstrated through titanium case studies.

Contribution

It presents a novel registration and correlation approach for multi-modal property maps, enabling rapid, high-resolution microstructural analysis and data-driven insights.

Findings

Strong correlation between crystal anisotropy and hardness.

Oxygen diffusion layer impacts on local hardness.

Method aligns well with existing literature trends.

Abstract

A method is presented for the registration and correlation of intrinsic property maps of materials, including data from nanoindentation hardness, Electron Back-Scattered Diffraction (EBSD), Electron Micro-Probe Analysis (EPMA). This highly spatially resolved method allows for the study of micron-scale microstructural features, and has the capability to rapidly extract correlations between multiple features of interest from datasets containing thousands of datapoints. Two case studies are presented in commercially pure (CP) titanium: in the first instance, the effect of crystal anisotropy on measured hardness and, in the second instance, the effect of an oxygen diffusion layer on hardness. The independently collected property maps are registered us-ing affine geometric transformations and are interpolated to allow for direct correlation. The results show strong agreement with trends observed in the literature, as well as providing a large dataset to facilitate future statistical analysis of microstructure-dependent mechanisms.