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IBRACON Structures and Materials Journal • 2012 • vol. 5 • nº 3
W. R. L. da Silva | J. Němeček | P. Štemberk
Figure 10 – Evaluation of porosity by BSE image analysis: (a) BSE image,
(b) image histogram/thresholding, and (c) processed image (pores are in black)
A
B
C
by the phase interactions influencing the nanoindentation results. The
influence of the evaluation by deconvolution is also considered. This
observation is supported by the fact that the level II homogenization
is based on mixture proportions and independent image analysis re-
sults. Therefore, the observed overall error must come from the ba-
sic indentation data used in the level I homogenization. In order to
decrease the effect of interactions and thus refine the computations,
it would be necessary to decrease the size of indents. Nonetheless,
such refinement is hardly achievable with standard polishing tech-
niques that provide surface roughness at least in the order of several
tens of nanometers on the given sample composition. In spite of the
error, the use of nanoindentation tests cannot not be either discarded
or substituted since it corresponds to the best experimental technique
which allows direct assessing of the mechanical properties of material
volumes with dimensions on the nanometer scale, [3], reason why this
technique has been chosen in the presented research.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, nanoindentation measurements have been applied