LAUSR

Abstract The plastic deformation zone sizes in various metallic materials (steel, copper, armco-iron) are studied during tests by scratching with a tetrahedral Vickers pyramid under the scratch formation conditions at a constant depth. The ratio of the plastic deformation zone depth under a scratch to the scratch depth is found to weakly depend on the scratch depth and to be 6.3–8.5 for the materials under study. Based on these results, we concluded that, when the mechanical properties of a metallic material are determined by scratching, the ratio of the material thickness to the scratch depth should be at least 8.5.