Nanoindentation of hard coated polymeric films: Experimental and FEM simulation

FASCE, LAURA; SELTZER, ROCÍO; FRONTINI, PATRICIA

Córdoba, Argentina

Simposio; V Argentine-Chilean Polymer Symposium" "VIII Argentine Polymer Symposium" "IX Chilean Symposium of Polymer Chemistry and Physical-Chemistry; 2009

Thin coatings deposited on polymers are widely used in optical, microelectronic, packaging, biomedical and decorative applications. Nanoindentation is an advanced technique used to evaluate the mechanical properties of thin coatings due to its capability of deforming materials on a very small scale. However, distinguishing the coating properties from the substrate effects is critical. For hard coatings on soft compliant substrates, deformation of the substrate is predominantly plastic whilst the coating may deform or fracture as it is bent into the track created by plastic deformation of the substrate. Hence, the indentation load-penetration depth curve reflects the mechanical behavior of the coating-substrate system. Moreover, discontinuities in the curve can be attributed to fracture events such as cracking, delamination and chipping occurring in response to the indentation stress.In this work we combined nanoindentation experiments with finite element simulations to determine the intrinsic elastic modulus (E) of a hybrid PEO/SiO2 coating deposited on a PVC substrate.