Nanoindentation Study of Resin Impregnated Sandstone and Early-Age Cement Paste Specimens

Nanoindentation testing requires well prepared samples with a good surface finish. Achieving a good surface finish is difficult for heterogeneous materials, particularly those with weak and fragile structures/phases, which are easily damaged or lost during preparation. The loss of weak structures can be drastically reduced by impregnating the sample with a resin before cutting and polishing. This technique is commonly used in SEM microscopy but has not been used for nanoindentation-testing before. This paper reports an investigation to extract micro-mechanical properties of different phases in resin impregnated sandstone and 1-day hydrated cement samples. The results appeared to show that it is feasible to use resin impregnated specimens for nanoindentation study of both materials.