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The hardness properties of materials are tracked from early history until the present time. Emphasis is placed on the hardness test being a useful probe for determining the local elastic, plastic and cracking properties of single crystal, polycrystalline, polyphase or amorphous materials. Beginning from connection made between individual hardness pressure measurements and the conventional stress–strain properties of polycrystalline materials, the newer consideration is described of directly specifying a hardness-type stress–strain relationship based on a continuous loading curve, particularly, as obtained with a spherical indenter. Such effort has received impetus from order-of-magnitude improvements in load and displacement measuring capabilities that are demonstrated for nanoindentation testing. Details of metrology assessments involved in various types of hardness tests are reviewed. A compilation of measurements is presented for the separate aspects of Hertzian elastic, dislocation-mechanics-based plasticity and indentation-fracture-mechanics-based cracking behaviors of materials, including elastic and plastic deformation rate effects. A number of test applications are reviewed, most notably involving the hardness of thin film materials and coatings.

Inhomogeneous re-oxidation, which causes graded NiO content along anode thickness, has been confirmed to be a key reason for Ni-based cell cracking during redox progress. In this paper, an analytical model is developed to estimate the impact of inhomogeneous re-oxidation on Ni-based solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) oxidation resistance. And experiments, in which the SOFC was partially re-oxidized, were implemented for model trial. Model results show that electrolyte internal stress can be significantly reduced (from 367 MPa to 135 MPa, when the oxidation degree is 60%), and the electrolyte can remain intact even when the oxidation degree reaches about 70%, if the anode was re-oxidized uniformly. This impact of inhomogeneous re-oxidation on stress in the electrolyte decreases as the anode thickness increases. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images of partially oxidized anode cross-sections confirmed that Ni oxidation was inhomogeneous, in which the outer regions of the anode became almost fully oxidized, while the inner regions remained metallic. And the inhomogeneity increases with the redox times. Consequently, it is important to avoid gradients in NiO content during oxidation progress to prevent cell cracking.