Received 4 December 2016 Revised 4 June 2017 Available online 13 July 2017 Keywords: Material properties Macro-indentation Vickers Genetic algorithm 1. Introduction Indentation tests have been developed to estimate material characteristics extensively. The most basic outcome is the hard- ness which is obtained by dividing maximum indentation load to the contact area. This method has emerged as a popular method to determine the mechanical properties of materials where tra- ditional methods such as tensile test are not convenient to use. This technique is cheap, simple, non-destructive and can be em- ployed for in-situ measurements as well as coatings characteriza- tion (VanLandingham, 2003; Chen et al., 2014). Many studies have been accomplished to derive an empirical relationship between hardness and mechanical properties of ma- terials. Up to now, a variety of empirical equations have been proposed to relate tensile yield stress and hardness (Tabor, 1951; Fisher-Cripps, 2000). By using the instrumented indentation mate- rial properties have been estimated with more precision. The out- put of the instrumented indentation test is a load (P) versus in- dentation depth (h) curve (hereafter is called the P-h curve) dur- ing loading and unloading process. It has been shown that the P- h curve is sensitive to the material properties (Pharr et al., 1998; Song and Komvopoulos, 2014). In fact, P-h curve is a function of abstract To determine mechanical properties, instrumented indentation is a non-destructive one where traditional methods (such as tensile test) are not accessible. However, there are several serious challenges when trying to correctly use this technique. Here, a method to predict the steel stress-strain uniaxial curve is presented accompanied by an ex- perimental verification. A wide range of Finite Element (FE) analyses using Vickers indentation were per- formed in order to generate an accurate equation. The experimental validation was followed by a general
