Fabrication and mechanical testing of mesoscale specimens

The mechanical response of metallic materials results from a complex hierarchy of deformation mechanisms across length scales. The need to understand these mechanisms independently has driven the miniaturization of testing samples, including small scale samples and single crystal micropillars. However, difficulties in machining and testing small samples have hampered the evaluation of the mechanical response of mesoscale samples with dimensions between tens to hundreds of microns. This paper innovates with a simple approach for the manufacturing and test of dog-bone specimens with a minimum gauge width up to 50 μm. The results demonstrate a pronounced sample size effects on the mechanical response for the dimensions analysed and highlights the need to advance the characterization of mesoscale samples. We also demonstrated the capability of testing the tensile response of single crystals from engineering alloys.