We report that hardness-to-strength ratio is not correlated with plastic Poisson's ratio in nanoporous gold

arguing against the Shaw–Sata relation. Instead

the hardness-to-strength ratio of nanoporous gold increases consistently with increasing rate of strain hardening. Furthermore

in samples with near-zero hardening in compression

the hardness-to-strength ratio does not deviate much from 1.0 when the plastic Poisson's ratio increases up to 0.27

echoing Miller's simulation. Current study suggests that the hardness-to-strength ratio is not a restraint factor

but an indicator of the strain hardening rate for nanoporous gold

which might apply to other porous materials with low-to-medium relative densities.