We propose an improved technique to determine the uniaxial residual stress, elastic modulus, and yield stress of a linear elastic, perfectly plastic bulk material from the force–displacement curve of one conical indentation test. Explicit relationships between the indentation loading–unloading parameters, material properties, and residual stress are established through extensive finite element analyses. Good agreement is found between the input material parameters used in numerical indentation tests and the properties identified from the reverse analysis, with an error of less than 10% in most cases. The technique is applied to a nanoindentation experiment on the crosssection of a thermal barrier system, to measure the elastic–plastic behavior and the residual stress in the bond coat. Likewise, the improved method may be used to measure effectively the material properties and uniaxial residual stress of a multilayer system
