Mechanical characterization of metals by small sampling size

Classical plasticity models permit to simulate accurately the macroscopic response of several metals. This ability supports the development of indirect material characterization methodologies based on non-destructive testing, potentially applied for the fast integrity assessment of structural components in operating conditions. In this context, reducing the sampling size mitigates the invasiveness of the experiments and improves the manageability of portable equipment, although the representativeness of the information collected from small material volumes may become an issue. This contribution focuses on the equivalence between the mechanical properties that can be inferred from metal sampling of typical dimensions of hundreds or dozens microns, corresponding to indentation tests carried out at maximum load differing by one order of magnitude. This topic is addressed by the comparison of the results gathered from experimental and numerical analyses of pipeline steel.