“Exploring the Unusual World of Small-Scale Strength and Mechanical Behavior with Nanoindentation”

A lecture by George Pharr, Ph.D., Texas A&M University. 

In this seminar, we will consider: 

Since its development on the mid-1980’s, nanoindentation has proven to be an important tool for exploring and characterizing the small-scale strength and mechanical behavior of a wide variety of materials. Some of these are quite unusual, either because the materials themselves are out-of-the-ordinary or because their mechanical behavior at the micro- and nano-scales is very different from that of the bulk. For example, small pillars of pure metals with diameters less than 1 micrometer can have strengths 10 to 100 times greater than their macroscopic counterparts. In this presentation, a series of examples is used to illustrate some of the unusual mechanical behavior observed at small scales along with the scientific reasons for them. The examples are taken from a diverse set of disciplines including materials science, biology, geology, and medicine, all of which have benefited enormously from recent advances in nanomechanical testing.

About Dr. Pharr

GEORGE M. PHARR is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Erle Nye ‘59 Chair at Texas A&M University, College Station TX. He received his BS in Mechanical Engineering at Rice University in 1975 and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford in 1979. After one year of postdoctoral study at the University of Cambridge, he returned to Rice in 1980 as a member of the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. He moved to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee (UT) in 1998, and to Texas A&M in 2017. While at UT, he served a term as Head of the Materials Science and Engineering Department and held a Joint Faculty Appointment at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Pharr is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of three professional societies: TMS, ASM International, and the Materials Research Society. He served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and a Principal Editor of the Journal of Materials Research. His research focuses on the mechanisms of plasticity and fracture in solids, especially at small scales.