In this paper, the hardness of ternary Al-based quasicrystals was assessed through an application of the cluster-plus-glue-atom model. In this model, any structure is decomposed into a first-neighbour strongly bonded cluster part and second-neighbour weakly bonded glue-atom part so that the overall structural information is condensed into a local structural unit cluster (glue atom)_x. For quasicrystals, the averaged local units are formulated as icosahedron TM_(0,1)(Transition Metal) and could be visualized as single icosahedron packing. Then, the hardness of quasicrystals was related to the rupture of weak inter-cluster bonds. Typically, theoretical hardness values of 8-9 GPa were obtained using 19 broken inter-cluster bonds, which accounts for about half of all the surface bonds of an icosahedron in the Mackay-type environment. The unit cluster formulas would act as rigid units during deformation and cracking.
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