REVIEW ON THE RESEARCHES AND PROSPECT OF THE TRANS-SCALE INDENTATION SCALING LAW OF SOLIDS

Indentation scaling law is a general mechanics and physical conclusion for the determination of mechanical properties of solid materials by indentation test method. It has important theoretical significance and is a methodological study to explore the potential mechanics and physical laws of mechanical properties of materials. In this review paper, the main contents are introduced systematically and briefly as follows: a review of the research on the indentation scaling law of traditional solid materials by using the traditional mechanics theory. A review of the research on the trans-scale indentation scaling law of advanced solid materials by using the theory of trans-scale mechanics. The main conclusions are summarized as follows: the traditional indentation scaling law for solid materials can be completely described by a spatial surface. If the value range of a class of dimensionless independent parameters is known, the spatial surface can degenerate into a family of planar curves. The trans-scale indentation scaling law of advanced solid materials (new materials) can be completely described by a three-dimensional function relationship. If the value range of some independent dimensionless parameter is known, the three-dimensional function relationship will degenerate into a series of spatial surface families. The future research on indentation scaling law for researchers in this research region will be likely still to be focused on the establishment of trans-scale indentation scaling law for new materials, aiming to fundamentally solve the theoretical problems that it is difficult to establish the mechanical properties standard for new materials. In addition, they will be also likely focus on the establishment of multi-scale and trans-scale indentation scaling laws for various functional new materials.