Predictions of nanohardness and elastic modulus of thin film material with the quasicontinuum method
J. W. Li and W. G. Jiang
Acta Metallurgica Sinica, 43, 851-856 (2007).

ABSTRACT
Quasicontinuum method was used to simulate the initial plastic deformation of
both single crystals of aluminium and copper in nanoindentation test. The
corresponding loading and unloading curves at different depths were obtained.
Based on the calculated load-depth curves, the contact stiffnesses,
nanohardnesses and elastic moduli for thin film materials were evaluated using
the Oliver-Pharr method and were compared with experimental results in the
publised literatures. The results show that the contact stiffness-displacement
curves are linear, and the size effect exists in nanohardness measurement, but
doesn't in elastic modulus measurement. The calculated nanohardnesses and
elastic moduli of both single crystals of aluminium and copper are (0.584 +/not
superset of 0.013) and (84.088 +/not superset of 0.332) GPa, (0.755 +/not
superset of 0.027) and (131.833 +/not superset of 4.449) GPa, respectively,
which agree with the experiments indicating that the presented approach is
reliable for prediction of the nanohardness and elastic modulus of thin film
materials.