Mechanical behavior assessment of sucrose using nanoindentation

An experimental study of the elastic and plastic properties of sucrose single crystals, which can be considered to be a model material for both pharmaceutical excipients and explosives, has been carried out using nanoindentation. Instrumented indentation was used to characterize the properties of both habit and cleavage planes on the (100) and (001) orientations; the elastic modulus on the (100) is 38 GPa, while the modulus on the (001) is 33 GPa. The hardness of sucrose is approximately 1.5 GPa. Nanoindentation enables assessment of the onset of plastic deformation on cleaved surfaces, and a maximum shear stress of 1 GPa can be supported prior to plastic deformation. The deformation in this material is crystallographically dependent, with pileup around residual indentation impressions showing evidence of preferential slip system activity.