ABSTRACT

By now, you are quite familiar with the terms contact deformation and nanoindentation from the preceding Chapters 1-7. In this chapter, we discuss the instrumental details of the different varieties of the commercially available nanoindentation machines that are typically used for performing the nanoindentation experiments. There are some essential units in a nanoindenter machine. First of all, there is an indenter, which is generally made of hard materials, mostly synthetic diamond. Then there is a load cell that converts the electrical energy into mechanical energy and vice versa. Finally, there are some units whose job it is to measure the displacement.