determination of the drucker–prager parameters of polymers exhibiting pressure-sensitive plastic behaviour by depth-sensing indentation

this paper presents a method to determine the drucker–prager parameters of pressure-dependant elastic-perfectly plastic polymeric materials by means of the depth-sensing indentation technique. this is achieved via an inverse analysis of the load–displacement data resulting from two tests performed with berkovich and spherical tips. the well-posedness and the effective range of application of the proposed method are carefully assessed first. then the method is tested for two elasto-plastic materials with mild initial strain-hardening (hdpe and pmma), and the results are compared to those measured using conventional tensile and compression tests. it is found that the pressure-sensitivity indices can be accurately predicted, while the yield stress predictions in tension and compression fall within the non-linear portion of the uniaxial stress–strain curves, i.e., inside the region where plastic deformation begins.