Rate-change instrumented indentation for measuring strain rate sensitivity

A rate-change instrumented indentation method is introduced to experimentally characterize the strain rate sensitivity of high strength materials, such as metallic glasses and nanocrystalline metals, which generally possess low rate sensitivity at room temperature. This technique has been validated herein, via self-consistency between rate jump and rate drop measurements, as a viable way to characterize rate dependent deformation behavior and thereby the underlying micromechanisms of plastic flow.