Abstract:The improved Johnson inclusion core model of indentation by conical and pyramidal indenters in which indenter is elastically deformed and a specimen is elastoplastically deformed under von Mises yield condition, was used for determination of mechanical properties of materials with different types of interatomic bond and different crystalline structures. This model enables us to determine approximately the Tabor parameter C = HM/Y S (where HM is the Meyer hardness and Y S is the yield stress of the specimen), size of the elastoplastic zone in the specimen, effective apex angle of the indenter under load, and effective angle of the indent after unloading. It was shown that the Tabor parameter and the size of elastoplastic deformation zone increase monotonically with the increase of the plasticity characteristic δ H , which is determined in indentation experiments using the early elaborated by the several authors of this article method. The corresponding analytical dependencies were obtained and their physical nature is discussed. For the materials studied in this work, the Tabor parameter ranges from 1 to 4. At the same time, for structural metallic alloys its value is between 2.8 and 3.1 in agreement with the results obtained by Tabor. A very simple technique developed in this article allows one to determine from the standard indentation test not only the hardness of a material but also its yield stress and plasticity. This makes the indentation test results significantly more informative.