Regions of the portevin-Le chatelier effect existing under the conditions of continuous room-temperature indentation of an Al-2.7% Mg alloy

Dynamic indentation is used to study the character of a plastic flow during room-temperature deformation of an Al-2.7% Mg alloy in micro-and submicrovolumes (the indentation depth is varied from 50 nm to 15 µm) at strain rates varying in the range 0.0005–1 s−1. In this region of parameters, the boundaries of stable deformation and two modes of unstable deformation have been found.