On the correlation between minimum thickness and central deflection during small punch test

Present paper deals with a detailed study on the correlation between minimum thickness (t/t₀) and central deflection (δ/t₀). Such data are obtained during the deformation of a small punch test of miniaturized specimen. Finite element studies have been carried out to investigate the effect of various parameters which are expected to influence this correlation. The parameters under consideration are material hardening, material yield stress, coefficient of friction and initial thickness of the specimen. It is shown that the correlation remains unaffected with respect to change in material parameters. Similarly, the coefficient of friction beyond 0.2 also does not affect the correlation. However, change in thickness has significant effect on the correlation. A modification has been suggested in the existing correlation to consider the influence of thickness change. The modified correlation is then used to calculate fracture toughness using the experimental results quoted in the literature. It is shown that the modified correlation improves the fracture toughness prediction considerably.