## 4 Discussion  
### Mass  
MSS has a clear advantage with its ability to determine Young's modulus and yield strength of a given sample in a minimally invasive manner. [PERSON] et al. [38] demonstrated indentation techniques as a powerful tool for extracting location-specific properties on the weld heat affected zones of manufactured final products. [PERSON] et al. [39] further demonstrated the desirability of indentation techniques by testing polymer matrix composite-based biomedical implant prototypes where standard mechanical test methods were difficult due to a lack of material volume at the location of interest. These authors have demonstrated in their respective work the potential utility of indentation-based techniques to be easily adapted for quality control/assurance applications for the manufactured final product both during its initial deployment as well as its in-service lifetime. This is enabled by the small material volumes probed by MSS. Figure 8: (**a**) Comparison of the measured SPT load-displacement curve on Sample number 6 with the three closest FE-predicted curves (i.e., exhibiting the lowest mean absolute error with respect to the measurement). (**b**) The stress-strain curve corresponding to the average \(K\), \(\varepsilon_{0}\), and \(n\) values of the best fit solutions in (**a**) compared against the corresponding UTT response for the same sample. Since SLM and other AM techniques intentionally employ varied process parameters for thin- and thick-walled regions of an AM build, it becomes important to evaluate and certify location-specific properties in the final AM-produced product. [PERSON] et al. [40] discussed the variations in melt pool thermal characteristics inherent to geometry changes in an SLM build. They suggested parameter variations between thin- and thick-walled regions of a build. MSS can satisfy the need to understand mechanical property variation throughout an AM build by producing a map of test results along a cross-section of a part. [PERSON] et al. [12] verified indentation testing as a way to map property variations between as-built and heat treated SLM samples. As performed in this work, an AM part may be sectioned with WEDM and polished before MSS is performed in a fully automated fashion. Figure 7 shows how MSS was found to track UTT results using only a small material volume and represents the validity of MSS for determining yield strength in SLM Inconel 718. MSS is ideally suited for rapid screening of large materials' chemistry and process design spaces using high-throughput assays that can potentially be automated. This becomes especially attractive when MSS is combined with a suitable strategy for high-throughput prototyping of sample libraries with different chemical compositions and/or process histories. [PERSON] et al. [41] researched laser deep alloying as a method to produce new construction materials in a high-throughput manner and coupled high-throughput sample production with indentation materials characterization. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [42] utilized laser deposition to generate compositionally graded metallic glass samples and extracted modulus values from nanoindentations so they could find trends between composition and modulus. Both of these studies demonstrate how high-throughput material production can be coupled with high-throughput indentation testing to rapidly characterize new materials. [PERSON] et al. [43], in their work using MSS protocols, has presented dramatic reductions in costs associated with mechanical property assessments which traditionally use UTT and espoused that this cost may be further reduced with more efficient data collection and analysis. The MSS performed in this study demonstrated similar cost reductions to those found by [PERSON] and allowed for increased data collection from AM materials where rapid material qualification is necessary to meet demand. MSS is also well suited for situations where full automation is required, such as in-space manufacturing applications. [PERSON] et al.