Experimental Results of Nanoindentation in alpha-Quartz

ResourceType

Dataset

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7936/av98-vn87

Embargo Period

10-31-2021

Grant/Award Number and Agency

NSF EAR 1726165 WashU Office of Undergraduate Research SURA

Abstract

Quartz is an abundant mineral in Earth’s crust whose mechanical behavior plays a significant role in the deformation of the continental lithosphere. However, the ductile rheology of quartz is difficult to measure experimentally at low temperatures without high confining pressures due to the tendency of quartz (and other geologic materials) to fracture under these conditions. Instrumented nanoindentation experiments inhibit cracking even at ambient conditions, allowing for the measurement of the ductile rheology of hard materials over a wide range of temperatures. Here we measure the indentation hardness of four synthetic quartz specimens and one natural quartz specimen with varying water contents over a temperature range of 23ºC to 500ºC from nanoindentation experiments. Yield stress, which is calculated from hardness but is model dependent, is fit to a constitutive flow law for low-temperature plasticity to estimate the athermal Peierls stress of quartz. The yield stresses presented here are lower than those obtained by extrapolating flow laws constrained by experiments at higher temperatures. Indentation hardness and yield stress show no dependence on water content.

Rights

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Size

170 MB

Share

COinS
 

Publication Date

2021