<p>Compared with common conical and cylindrical indentation, the truncated conical indentation has advantages such as more coordinated contact, rich deformation information and stable test results during the loading process. As the selection of the cone angle for indenter has notable influence on the load-depth curve, the cone angle of the truncated conical indenter was first determined based on numerical simulation optimization. Based on energy equivalence theory and numerical analysis, a truncated conical indentation (TCI) model was established correlating the indentation work, constitutive model parameters, and indenter diameter, which can be used to characterize the tensile properties of light alloys. The accuracy of the TCI model in predicting the stress–strain relations of materials was numerically verified by varying constitutive model parameters within the range of common light alloys. The truncated conical indentation tests were conducted on four light alloys, respectively, and the stress–strain curves and tensile strengths of these materials were obtained using the TCI model. The comparisons and analyses show that the indentation predictions are in good agreement with the uni-axial tensile results.</p>