Creep

Creep is the tendency of a solid material to move slowly or deform permanently under the influence of mechanical stresses.
It can occur as a result of long-term exposure to high levels of stress that are still below the yield strength of the material.
Creep is more severe in materials that are subjected to heat for long periods, and generally increases as they near
Tendency of a solid material to move slowly or deform permanently under the influence of mechanical stresses 1
their melting point.
2
 High temperature materials problem
Atoms move faster diffusion-controlled process. This affects mechanical
properties of materials.
Greater mobility of dislocations (climb).
Temp
Increased amount of vacancies (Equilibrium concentration).
Deformation at grain boundaries , introduction of additional slip systems.
Metallurgical changes: phase transformation, precipitation, oxidation,
recrystallization and grain coarsening, overaging.

High temperature materials/alloys requires

Improved high temperature strength.
Good oxidation resistance.

Strength becomes very dependent to strain rate

and time of exposureCreep 3
 High temperature applications

Steam power plant

Oil refinery

Steam turbine used in power plant

Sagging of the filament coil increases Nickel superalloy jet engine

with time due to creep deformation (RB199) turbine blade
caused by the weight of the filament.

World trade center, WTC collapsed, due to creep?

4
 TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE

Materials properties
change with temperature

5
 What is Creep?
Time dependent permanent plastic deformation, which generally occurs at high temperatures (T > 0..4Tm), under a constant load or stress.

Note:
Time-dependent deformation of a material while under an applied load that is below its yield strength.
It can also happened at room temperature for soft metals such as Lead.
It is a slow process, where deformation changes with time.
Creep is a deformation mechanism that may or may not constitute a failure mode.

At which temperature that material will creep?

Since materials have its own different melting point, each will creep when the homologous
temperature > 0.5.
Testing temperature
Homologous temp = > 0.5
Melting temperature

The creep test measure the dimensional changes which occur when subjected to high temperature.
The rupture test measures the effect of temperature on the long time load bearing characteristics.
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 Creep test
The creep test is carried out by applying a constant load to a tensile specimen
maintained at a constant temperature, (according to ASTM E139-70).

A typical creep curve shows three distinct stages with

different creep rates

After an initial rapid elongation 0, the creep rate decrease with time until reaching
the steady state.

0 is instantaneous strain on loading which is partly recoverable with time (elastic) Creep test setting setup (schematic)
and partly non-recoverable with time (plastic). 7
Example of Creep test

Experimental Conditions
Wire Material: Solder = 60% Sn - 40% Pb
Melting Temperature: 183C
Wire Diameter: 1/8" = 3.175 mm
Load: 4.8 kg (about one tenth of the load required to get
immediate plastic deformation)

Final Data
Original wire length: 1 ft = 30.5 cm
Final wire length: 4.5 ft = 139.5 cm
Test temperature: 25C
Test duration: 90.8 hours = 3 days, 18 hours, 48 seconds
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 Specimen geometry
Creep test is conducted in uniaxial tension using specimen having the
same geometry as for tensile test.

For brittle materials : uniaxial compression test more appropriate.

P
initial state after creep

10 mm Creep test setting setup

P
9
Compression Creep
 Primary creep or transient creep
1) Primary creep (transient creep) provides decreasing creep rate.

The creep rate goes on reducing because as the metal deforms it

undergoes strain hardening and offers more and more resistance to
further elongation.

Transient creep:
The principle characteristic of transient creep is the decreasing
rate in deformation.

Deformation is rapid at first but gradually becomes slower and

slower as the rate approaches some fixed value.

Transient creep in metals is observed at all temp, even near

absolute zero. Hence it is some times referred to as cold creep

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 Secondary Creep or steady state creep creep
2) Secondary creep gives the representing constant creep rate.

Nearly constant creep rate, because strain-hardening and

recovery effects balance each other. Creep in this region takes
place by the viscous flow in the materials.

Viscous creep:
It is characterized by the viscous flow of the material means that there is
a constant or a steady increase in deformation at constant stress

Although strain hardening is present, its effect is just balanced by the

recovery process which has the opposite effect i.e softening the metal.

Viscous creep is stopped when there is considerable reduction in cross

sectional area and enters the tertiary stage .

Viscous creep also known as hot creep', since it is observed only at

higher temperature.
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 Tertiary creep
3) Tertiary creep yields a rapid creep rate till failure.

Tertiary creep occurs when there is an effective reduction in cross-

sectional area due to necking or internal void formation.

The rate of deformation increases rapidly in this 3rd stage and

fracture occurs at the end of this stage.

Failure, due to microstructure and/or metallurgical changes e.g.

grain boundary separation and the formation of internal cracks,
cavities and voids.

If the stress is kept constant of the load or if true strain is taken

into consideration then the resulting fracture due to creep would
be at B.

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 Effect of stress and temperature on creep curves

Effect of Stress

Applied stress Strain

The shape of creep curve will slightly change according to the applied stress at a constant temperature.

Steady state creep increases with increasing temperature and stress 14

 Effect of low temperature (< 0.4 Tm)
Temperature below 0.4 Tm are called as LOWER TEMP.

lower temp have an effect of decreasing the creep rate.

This is because strain hardening effects will be more and

recovery process is negligible.

Creep occurring at lower temp is known as logarithmic

creep

Where,
= ln t - strain ,
a constant
t time .

low temperature logarithmic creep obeys a mechanical equation of state i.e the rate of
strain at a given time depends only on the instantaneous values of stress and strain and not on
the previous strain history.
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 Effect of high temperature
At Higher temp. the creep rate increases through structural changes.

Mobility of atoms with temp and occupy lower energy positions.

Mobility of dislocation also and they overcome the obstacles by the mechanism of
climb.

The concentration of vacancies with temp and the rate of diffusion .

Recrystallization takes place as a result of increased rate of diffusion.

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 The stress rupture test
The rupture test in carried out in a similar manner to the creep test but at a higher
stress level until the specimen fails and the time at failure is measured.
Creep test Stress rupture test
Load Low load high load
Stopping May not be carried up to failure Always carried up to failure
Creep rate Low creep rate high creep rate
Test period 2000-10000 h 1000 h
Total strain 0.5% 50%
Strain Good strain measuring Simpler strain
gauge devices measuring devices
Stress rupture- time data on log-log scale
Emphasis Minimum strain rate at stress & Time to failure at stress and
temperature temperature

Rupture strength and failure time are plotted, normally showing a straight line.

Changing of the slope indicates structural changes in the material, i.e., transgranular/intergranular
fracture, oxidation, recrystallization, grain growth, spheroidization, precipitation. 17
 Structural changes during creep
There are three principal deformation processes at elevated temperature.

1) Deformation by slip
More slip systems operate at high temperature
Slip bands are coarser and widely spaced.

2) Subgrain formation
Creep deformation produces inhomoginiety especially around grain boundaries, allowing
dislocations to arrange themselves into a low-angle grain boundary.

3) Grain boundary sliding

Produced by shear process and promoted by increasing temperature/or decreasing strain
rate.
Results in grain boundary folding or grain boundary migration.

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19
 Mechanisms of creep deformation

The chief creep deformation mechanisms can be grouped into;

1) Dislocation glide

2) Dislocation creep

3) Diffusion creep

4) Grain boundary sliding

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 Creep Mechanisms: 1) Dislocation glide
Involves dislocation moving along slip planes and overcoming barriers by thermal activation. Occurs at high stress.

The creep rate is established by the ease with which the dislocation move across obstacles such as precipitates, GB
etc.
Grain Boundary
This may include cross-slip of dislocations with the aid of thermal energy.

Dislocation glide results in increase in plastic strain during creep deformation

Dislocation

Glide & Climb

Cross Slip
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Glide & Climb
 Creep Mechanisms: 2) Dislocation creep or dislocation climb
Involves dislocation movement to overcome barriers by diffusion of vacancies or interstitials.

This is caused due to mutual movement of dislocations & vacancies. At high temp the diffusion rate of vacancies is more
which make the dislocations to glide & climb, edge dislocation can move end of a slip plane OR to a plane above or below the
slip Plane.

Vacancy Dislocation

This occurs at high temperature (T 0.4Tm) & when

dislocation cause across obstacles, they use
vacancies/or interstitial atoms to climb and go around
them for slip & hence plastic deformation continues.

Mutual movement of dislocations & vacancies. 22

 Creep Mechanisms: 3) Diffusion creep
Involves the flow of vacancies and interstitials through a crystal under the influence of applied stress.
Directional migration of vacancies from low to high stress sites occurs.
When vacancy migrates, materials effectively moves in opposite direction (from high to low stress), so crystal
changes shape.

There are two types of diffusion creep:

(i) Coble creep (favoured at lower temperatures), around the

grain boundaries
(ii) Nabarro-Herring creep (favoured at higher temperatures)
through the lattice

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 Creep Mechanisms: 4) Grain boundary sliding
Involves the sliding of grains past each other.
Diffusion of vacancies (and counter flow of material) from one part of a grain boundary to another so as to aid the
sliding of grains past one another
At low temp the Grain boundaries will not flow viscously & provide obstacles to
dislocation motion.

At elevated temp , the grains in polycrystalline materials are able to move relative to
each other, this is called grain boundary sliding and is an shear process which occurs
in the direction of grain boundary [GB] .

A large no. of grains sliding with each other results in plastic deformation due to creep .

GB sliding is promoted by increases the temp. & or decreasing the strain rate.

In fine grained materials because of large no. of grains this type of creep is more, so to
avoid it large-coarse grained materials are to be used.

Ex :
Ni-based super alloy with single crystals in jet engine blades, eliminates the possibility of
creep at high temp aided by grain boundary sliding
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 Deformation mechanism maps
Creep and recovery mechanisms depend on several factors: Identity of the material, grain
size, applied stress/shear modulus, temperature/melting temperature, strain rate etc.
Normalized differential Stress (/G)

Strain rate is shown by

moving counter

Simplified deformation mechanism map

The various regions of the map indicate the dominant deformation mechanism for the combination of stress and
temperature. At the boundary, two mechanisms occur.
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 Creep deformation maps for Nickel

Work- hardened 1mm grain size Annealed Ni grain size 0.1mm 26

 Effect of grain size and work - hardening
The effects are:
The yield stress is higher for the work- hardened
material.

Diffusional creep dominates to higher stresses in

the small- grained material.

Power law creep dotted interface does not

move despite change in dislocation density.

The vertical line between diffusion creep

occurring by lattice diffusion and by boundary
diffusion moves to the right for the smaller -
grained material.

The effect of grain size and work - hardening on

the deformation mechanism map for nickel
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 Stress relaxation
Stress relaxation is the observed decrease in stress in response to the same amount of strain generated in the structure.

Example :
Stress relaxation in bolts which hold rigid bodies in tight contact, stress will reduce in such members
after a long period.

This should not be confused with creep, which is a constant state of stress with an
increasing amount of strain.

Stress relaxation is primarily due to keeping the structure in a strained condition for some
finite interval of time and hence causing some amount of plastic strain.

Total strain of a tensile specimen is

= e+ P = /E + P
Due to creep, the specimen tries to increase in length. But if it is constrained at its two ends,
the total strain remains constant at any point of time. However, whatever strain the specimen
has undergone will become plastic while the elastic strain goes on decreasing. In other words, all
the elastic deformation is converted to plastic deformation with the passage of time.
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 Creep Stress Relaxation
F F

time time

fixed strain
F
F
fixed load Permanent deformation
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Creep III
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 High Temperature Fracture
High-temperature fracture is the crystallographic and diffusional flow of atoms in a materials lattice based on
the temperature, applied stress level, and stress state conditions of the overall material.

Three types
i. Rupture,
ii. Intergranular creep fracture (ICF) , and
iii. Transgranular creep fracture (TCF)

Key factors to determine type of fracture : Material, Temperature, Applied stress level, Stress state

Each mode is characterized by a reduction in area in the sample during tensile elongation due to voids
nucleating around second phase particles and areas of strain. For all modes, an external stress of greater
strength than the surface energy stress must be applied for voids to grow and cause fracture to occur.
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 Rupture
Takes place at high stress levels and high temperatures,
Characterized by a near 100% reduction in area.
This is due to the dynamic recrystallization that occurs during rupture as voids that are being created in the
material undergoing tensile elongation are being suppressed by the new grains growing in the material.

Rupture Transgranular Intergranular Dynamic recrystallization

In dynamic recrystallization, the nucleation and growth of new grains occurs during deformation rather than afterwards as
part of a separate heat treatment. 32
Transgranular creep fracture & Intergranular creep fracture
Transgranular creep fracture:
Occurs at temperatures lower than those associated
with rupture,
characterized by a finite reduction in area.
This finite reduction in area results from nucleation
of internal voids at lower temperatures.

Intergranular creep fracture:

Occurs at stress levels and strain rates lower than
those for transgranular creep fracture and rupture,
Characterized by little to no reduction in area. Rupture Transgranular Intergranular
This is a result of voids forming along grain
boundaries from the presence of second-phase
particles. The voids that form on grain boundaries,
grows normal to the tensile axis to cause fracture .

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34
Transgranular and Intergranular Fracturecontd.

Transgranular Temperature Intergranular

Triple point

Intergranular Transgranular

Intergranular cracking, characterized by triple Transgranular cracking occurs through or across the
points, rock-candy or a faceted appearance, occurs crystals or metal grains and is characterized by
at and along the grain boundaries of metal. cleavage steps, river patterns and feather markings.
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 Void Growth
Void growth occurs by deformation involving diffusional flow and/or dislocation creep and the
driving force is the applied stress.

As the voids grow, they comprise a larger portion of the cross sectional area of a material.
This increases the stress upon the area that does not contain voids for intergranular creep
fracture or on the area of the grain boundary for transgranular creep fracture.

The creep rate is accelerated by void growth.

When the voids grow large enough to comprise a critical area that is normal to the applied stress,
shearing or micro rupture occurs, causing voids to combine and leading to eventual catastrophic
failure.

Voids can be present in a material initially but are also created through void nucleation

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 Mechanisms of void nucleation
Different damage mechanisms may occur based on factors like changes in precipitate morphology, alteration in
second-phase interfaces, changes in mobile dislocation density, continuous secondary-phase precipitation, grain-
boundary cavitation and cracking.

(a) void nucleation and (b) ductile crack-growth

growth leading to grain-
boundary decohesion under
normal stress
(c) creep crack resulting from
initiation at triple points due to
grain-boundary sliding void sheeting along grain
boundary under shear stress.

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 Mechanisms of void nucleationcontd.
Wedge shape cracks are formed by grain boundary sliding that is not
accommodated for by other rearranging in the materials lattice. At grain
boundaries, triple points exist where the stress is parallel and opposing cracks
form into a wedge shape, or w shape.

Spherical cavities also form and their growth and coalescence can lead to
fracture.
Formation of wedge-shaped cracks produced by
A precipitate along the grain boundary will be a nucleation point for a void unaccommodated grain boundary sliding.
during intergranular creep fracture.

Incompatible strain can also lead to void nucleation .

Sharp discontinuities along the grain boundary may cause grain boundary
sliding that is not accommodated for, leading to void nucleation

Wedge-void type crack formed from

Cavity-void type crack formed from an unaccommodated grain-boundary sliding
inclusion interacting with the grain boundary

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Different fracture mechanisms

39
 Presentation of engineering creep data
Creep strength is defined as the stress at a given temperature, which produces a steady-state creep rate
(10-11 to 10-8 s-1.)

Stress vs minimum creep rate for type 316 stainless steel

Log-log plot is used so that the extrapolation of one log-cycle represents a tenfold change. 40
 Creep data
Creep data can also be presented as a plot of stress and time to produce different amounts of total strain.

Relating creep strength and rupture strength

As per Monkman and Grant:

log (rupture time) + C log (creep rate)= K

Where, C and K are constant for given alloy

The upper most curve is the stress rupture curve.

The percentage beside each data point

is the percentage reduction at failure. 41
 Example: Determine the working stress at 600 C and 800 C for type 316 stainless steel if the design
criterion is a creep strength based on 1 percent extension in 1000 hr. Use a factor of safety of 3.

From stress and minimum creep rate curve, the

working stress using the safety factor of 3 can be
obtained in the table below.

Stress vs minimum creep rate for type 316 stainless steel

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Creep IV
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 Activation Energy for Creep
Creep is a thermally activated process and steady state creep obeys Arrhenius-type rate equation.

In the intermediate temperature range (Tm<T<0.6Tm) the steady

state creep rate can be expressed as a power law function:

Where, Q is the activation energy for creep,

A is the pre-exponential constant, n is a constant (range 3 to 10) where A2 and n are material constants
R is universal gas constant, T is the absolute temperature
The activated energy Q can be calculated by assuming the temperature interval is small so that the creep
mechanisms (structure of materials) is not expected to change.

At steady state, Hence,

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 PREDICTION OF LONG-TIME PROPERTIES
High-temperature strength data are needed for conditions for which there is no
experimental information
Reliable extrapolation of creep and stress-rupture curves to longer times can be
made only when it is certain that no structural changes occur in the region of
extrapolation
Examine the log-stress-Iog-rupture life plot at a temperature several hundred
degrees above the required temperature
Several time-temperature parameters have been proposed for trading off
temperature for time

45
Sherby-Dorn temperature-compensated time parameter

If and QIR are functions of stress only, then the above equation is linear in In t
and 1/T
Larson and Miller showed experimental stress-rupture data plotted in
accordance with above equation
46
 LARSON MILLER PARAMETER
The line for each constant stress converges to a common point on the Int axis this plot indicates that Q varies
with stress but does not. The point of convergence is In = - C1
The Larson-Miller parameter is a means of predicting the lifetime of material vs. time and temperature

Larson-Miller parameter parameter

can be formulated as:

Where ,
t is the time (in hour) to rupture (or to some defined
strain e.g. 1%)
Q is the activation energy for creep,
R is the gas constant and
Q/R= slope
C is a constant for a particular material and has
a value typically around 20 Stress rupture data plotted as ln(rupture time)
T is temperature in Kelvin versus reciprocal of absolute temperature.
47
 Derivation of Larson-Miller Parameter

Assuming, creep strain to rupture r is a constant over the temperature range of interest, and creep strain is
steady state creep. Then, average creep rate over the life to rupture, tr , of the specimen is

C1 is the Larson-miller Constant = (ln A ln r) and

P is the Larson-Miller Parameter for a particular
stress 48
 Larson Miller Master Plot
If P is evaluated for pairs of t and T obtained over a range
of stress, a single master curve is obtained for the material

Time compression of operating conditions

based on Larson-Miller parameter C1 = 46

For a given stress, the Larson-miller Parameter for the material

can be obtained and the time to rupture predicted for any
temperature.
Alternatively, given a lifetime required at a specified
temperature, the L-M Parameter can be calculated and the
maximum allowed stress looked up on a graph
Master curve for Larson-Miller Parameter 49
 Example Problem
An S - 590 alloy component (Figure 1) must
have a creep rupture lifetime of at least 100
days at 500 C (773 K). Compute the maximum
allowable stress level.

Larson Miller parameter (P)=

From the curve in Figure 1, this value

of the Larson- Miller parameter
corresponds to a stress level of about Fig 1: Logarithm of stress versus the Larson-
530 MPa (77,000 psi). Miller parameter for an S-590 alloy

Also read example problem of Diter, at 13-13, page 464

50
 Creep-Fatigue Interactions
Most materials are exposed to more than one type of environment. This may
include:
High temperature creep
Cyclic loading fatigue
Corrosive environment Embrittlement

This combination makes interpretation of results difficult.

In design, empirical relationships (often lacking a serious theoretical or
fundamental basis) are used to account for this.

Example:
High-temperature turbine blade in an aircraft engine
Temperatures are in the creep regime.
Physically the environment is toxic.
Rotational stresses and CTE differences produce cyclic loading (particularly
during startup).
51
 Creep accelerated by fatigue
Vs
Fatigue accelerated by creep
Creep accelerated by fatigue Fatigue accelerated by creep
Cyclic stress or strain amplitude is small Cyclic stress or strain amplitude is large
compared to the mean stress (i.e., a << m). compared to the mean stress (i.e., a >> m).

Temperature is high and the applied cyclic Temperature is low and the applied frequency is
frequency is low. high.

Fracture surfaces exhibit a tendency towards Fracture surfaces are manifested by fatigue
intergranular fracture (like tensile specimens striations and regions of transgranular fracture
deformed to failure at high temperatures).

52
 Miner s and Robinsons Rule: Creep fatigue interaction
Both fatigue and static strength properties get reduced with increasing temperature

Combine Palmgren-Miner (P-M) rule for fatigue life with Robinsons (R) rule for creep life under various T
combinations

Rule/model predicts
linear behavior.
N/Nf : Number of cycles normalised by the number of cycles to failure
t/tr : Time exposed normalised by the rupture life 53
 Summary of processes that can play a role under
conditions of creep-fatigue interaction
Testing Condition Beneficial Effects Detrimental Effects
Temp. or frequency Slip dispersal, Strain aging, Crack-tip Creep damage
during LCF testing blunting, Microstructural coarsening Environmental effects
Temp. or frequency Elimination of creep and Increased planarity of slip
during LCF testing environmental effects
Compressive holds during LCF Sintering of g.b. cavities Development of tensile mean stress
testing
Fatigue followed by creep loading Cyclic work hardening Cyclic work softening
Creep followed by Precipitation of Little effect when g.b. damage does
fatigue loading strengthening phases not occur
Cyclic creep Anelastic strain storage recovery Metallurgical recovery

Concluding Remarks:
Temperature plays a very big role in fatigue at temperatures where diffusion is significant.
This is probably the most significant cause for failure in high temperature systems.
Mechanistically, aside from understanding that crack initiation and propagation lead to failure; it is difficult to predict
creep-fatigue failures as it will vary from material to material. 54
55
 Superalloy
A superalloy, or highperformance alloy, is an alloy that exhibits excellent mechanical
strength and creep resistance at high temperatures, good surface stability, and corrosion
and oxidation resistance.

Application: Aerospace, turbine blades, bimetallic engine valves for diesel and
automotive applications.

Alloying element: Nickel, Cobalt, or Nickeliron Typical composition for Ni based

superalloy
61.7% Ni +9.5% Cr + 6.5% Co + 6.4% W + 3.0% Re + 5.7%Al + 1.0% Ti + 6.5%Ta + 0.1% Ta
+0.1%Hf

Al, Ti & Ta formers

Cr, Al, Hf oxidation and corrosion resistance
W, Mo, Re solid solution hardening; reduction in diffusion in matrix
56
 How do we deal with Creep?
1. Reduce the effect of grain boundaries: Use single crystals
2. Use suitable Materials
3. Change operating conditions

9%Cr, 10%Co, 2%Ti, 5%Al,

12,5%W, 0.05%Zr, 0.015%B,
0.15%C -Ni.

Ni Based superalloys are used for turbine blades

57
MATERIALS TO
RESIST CREEP

58