Soft material is becoming increasingly important to many industries, which leads to the demand for a better understanding of its mechanical properties under large deformation. In this paper, a technique of integrating the digital moiré method and embedded-grating approach is presented for investigating mechanical behaviors of a vulcanized silicone rubber in contact with a wedge-shaped indenter. Two distinct deformation sectors are observed from the experimental result. A simple way of computing strain is also presented by analysing grid deformation within the framework of geometrical nonlinearity. Three regions were observed from strain distribution along the horizontal direction: the contact region, the sink-in region and the far-field region.Moreover, the extent of the sticky region and that of the slippy region within the contact interface are distinguished, which can provide realistic data for theoretical modelling. Based on the finite deformation elasticity theory, the distribution of contact pressure and shear stress over the contact interface are derived for prediction of possible cracks.
With the rapid development of micro/nano manufacturing technology and nanomaterials,the accurate measurement of the mechanical properties and behaviors at the micro-nano scale represents a new field of mechanical experiments.Raman spectroscopy,which is based on lattice dynamics theory,is applicable to the detection of the statistical information of the lattice structure deformation within the measuring points.Due to its peculiarities,such as non-destructiveness,convenience and high-resolution,this technology allows the on-line in situ measurement of residual stress in microstructures caused by processing and can also achieve the real-time deformation of graphene,carbon nanotubes and other nanomaterials under force loading.In recent years,mechanical measurements based on Raman spectroscopy technology have developed rapidly.In this review,Raman-based stress measurement theories for several commonly used materials are briefly described.Applications related to the residual stress measurements of microstructure and experimental investigations of the mechanical properties of low-dimensional nanomaterials are then reviewed.Finally,the development trend of this method is proposed.
Si-based multilayer structures are widely used in current microelectronics. During their preparation, some inhomogeneous residual stress is induced, resulting in competition between interface mismatching and surface energy and even leading to structure failure. This work presents a methodological study on the measurement of residual stress in a multi-layer semiconductor heterostructure. Scanning electron microscopy(SEM), micro-Raman spectroscopy(MRS), and transmission electron microscopy(TEM) were applied to measure the geometric parameters of the multilayer structure. The relationship between the Raman spectrum and the stress/strain on the [100] and [110] crystal orientations was determined to enable surface and crosssection residual stress analyses, respectively. Based on the Raman mapping results, the distribution of residual stress along the depth of the multi-layer heterostructure was successfully obtained.
Microfibers formed by Bacillus subtilis(B. subtilis) have attracted interest because of their potential for use as biodegradable fibers. In this work, an efficient method based on the micro-liquid bridge method(LBM) is proposed to investigate the mechanical properties and the deformation evolution in individual fibers. For the first time, tensile testing of fibers of this type containing several cells is conducted in a scanning electron microscope(SEM) chamber and the in situ deformation evolution of the fibers and the septa is observed. Experimental results show that these fibers are almost broken at the positions of the septa at low humidity, but also show that their fracture morphologies are different. At high humidity, local necking deformation occurs at the septum position. To explore the deformation mechanism of an individual bacterial fiber with a diameter of several hundred nanometers under different humidity conditions, we use the finite element method(FEM) to analyze the tensile deformation behavior of these fibers when their septa are at various separation levels. The numerical results indicate that weak interactions among the septa lead to the dispersion of both the fibrous tensile strength and the modulus. These results may be helpful in understanding the deformation mechanism, thus leading to further improvements in the mechanical performance of these fibers.
