Creep, and the Creep Example

In the example problem worked in this module, we are examining a creep situation.

What is creep? Well, simply put, creep is the tendency of materials to experience
permanent deformation when exposed to elevated temperatures for an extended time
frame, under loads which would be completely elastic if applied at a normal
temperature. That is, in creep, strains on a body become increasingly permanent over
time in the presence of elevated temperature. This results in stress relaxation in the body.
In the alternative, stress can be held constant and total strain will increase with time, in a
creep situation. Either scenario is a result of time-dependent inelastic strain.

In the example problem, a bolt is pretensioned to hold the lid of a pressure containment
vessel. The initial strain on the bolt is (1/30000), or 33.333 -strain, well within the
elastic range of the steel used. Thus, if the bolt were tightened as specified, and later
released, there would be no permanent strain, if the situation occurred entirely at (or near)
the reference temperature for the material. If the temperature is significantly raised,
though, our hypothetical material demonstrates a quite different behavior.

In the model, we assume that the total strain experienced by the bolts is constant, but the
total strain consists of an elastic part, and an inelastic part. The inelastic part is the
permanent creep strain. Thus we have
33.33 10 6 el cr
cr C1 C2
cr cr dt
E el E ( cr )
It may be seen from the last equation of the set above that the amount of creep strain
affects the stress, which in turn affects the creep strain rate (second equation, above,)
which in turn affects the creep strain (third equation,) which again affects the stress, and
so on. This is what I meant when I referred in the module to situations where the field
variable is self-affecting. Note that there are many different creep models, wherein
different empirical formulae are used to determine the inelastic strain. This is one such
model (strain rate as a power function of stress); Abaqus supports this model, and others.

The described situation is handled in the FEA approach by, again, using an iterative
scheme.
1. Initially, at time t = 0, we assume no inelastic strain ( cr0 0 ), hence
0 E el0 E .
2. We calculate the creep strain rate to be cr0 C1 0 , and approximate cr1 cr0 t
k

at the end of one time period t. We then recalculate elastic strain as el1 cr1
and recalculate stress as 1 E el1 .
 3. We recalculate strain rate as cr2 C1 1 2 , recalculate inelastic strain as
C

cr2 1 cr cr2 t , recalculate elastic strain as el2 cr2 and recalculate stress as
2 E el2 .
4. We continue in the process, until we reach the end of our chosen time frame.

Here are the steps to be taken by you, to perform this analysis in Abaqus. These are the
GUI steps; if you are interested in the command steps, you might look at the .inp file
that Abaqus creates from your GUI inputs. It is assumed by now that you have sufficient
experience with Abaqus to know how, for example, to create a section definition or
instance a part.

1. Enter the Abaqus/CAE environment, and specify an appropriate job name, like
creep.
2. Create a 3-D solid extrusion consisting of a right, circular cylinder of radius
0.5642 and length of 10. Note that these dimensions are in inches.
3. Create the material property definition. This material will require a reference
temperature, as the creep only occurs at elevated temperatures. We will thus need
to input the elastic properties which include a thermal expansion coefficient. This
coefficient may have a zero value, but must be input in order to provide a
reference temperature.

The creep properties to input are: Power Law Multiplier (A) = 4.8 x 10-30,
Equivalent Stress Order (n) = 7 and Time Order (m) = 0. The units of A are
strain/hour; n and m are unitless.

In the ANSYS example which this exercise emulates, there is no temperature

dependence included for the elastic properties. Thus, we will not include that
dependence here, either, but we could include it by simply identifying within the
Elastic Material Behavior section of the Edit Material dialog box that this will be
a temperature-dependent property set, and then defining multiple
Modulus/Poissons Ratio/Temperature lines in the material definition.
a. Define a new material by double-clicking on the Materials item of the
model tree.
b. Assign the following properties:
i. Mechanical -> Elastic: Modulus = 30e6, Poissons ratio = 0.3
ii. Mechanical -> Expansion: set reference temperature to 70, Alpha
to 6.5e-6
iii. Mechanical -> Plasticity -> Creep: Choose Time Hardening Law,
set the Power Law Multiplier to 4.8e-30, Equivalent Stress Order
to 7 and Time order to 0.
4. Create a section definition for the rod, and assign this section to the part.
5. Instance the part.
6. Save the database.
7. Mesh the part with C3D8R elements. [That is, select the Standard Library, Linear
order, 3D Stress family and otherwise choose the default values. C3D8R will be
the recommended element.] Seed the part with a global size of 0.5. This is a
coarse mesh, but one that will fit within Abaqus SE size limits, and thus is useful
for demonstration. The results we obtain will not match exactly the ANSYS and
theoretical results because of mesh coarseness, but again they will be qualitatively
correct and useful for demonstration.
8. Define the steps to be used.
a. The elevated temperature will be input as a predefined field during the
Initial step. We have not previously used this idea, so here are the exact
steps to create the predefined field:
i. In the model tree, locate and double-click the item Predefined
Fields.
ii. Name the field if you wish to, and associate it with the Initial step.
So far, no other steps have been defined, so this is unambiguous.
iii. Choose Category Other, highlight Temperature and click
Continue.
iv. You will be prompted to select the region. This will be the entire
bar. When you have selected the region, click Done, and input
900 for the magnitude.
b. The bolt load will be applied over a short time period at the beginning of
the analysis (step-1, first step after Initial.) In this same step, boundary
conditions will be applied.
i. To do this, double click on model tree item Steps and create
step-1 (rename it, if you like) as the first step after Initial. I input
time period of 1 for this step. Click OK.
c. The third step is merely a time interval (1000 hours) that is to be elapsed,
at which point stress will be evaluated.
i. Again, double-click on the Steps item, and create a step that
follows Step-1 (created in part b, above). I called this step creep,
and input a time period of 1000.
ii. Prior to closing this dialog box, go to the Incrementation tab and
input an increment of 10. I set the type to fixed, with maximum
number of increments of 100. If you choose automatic, you may
get slightly different results than what my steps produce. Now
click OK
9. Apply the bolt load as a pressure on one flat face (-1000 psi,) and the encastre
condition (fully fixed) at the other end of the bolt. Each of these is to be applied
in step-1.
10. You may now create history output requests, or simply accept the defaults. The
job creation is complete. Submit the analysis, and review the results. My results
are shown below. This is merely an image of the Von Mises stress superimposed
upon the deformed bar shape.
If you look very closely, you will see an oddity within this image. Specifically, if you
look from the right edge, approximately of the way along the bar, there is a strange
variation in stress. Stress increases monotonically away from the fixed edge, then oddly
decreases in a small region, before increasing again. This may be more visible to you as
you do the analysis yourself. At any event, it is likely an indication of insufficient mesh
density, which also accounts for the variation of results between Abaqus and
Theoretical/ANSYS results. Theory and ANSYS each predict a minimum stress of 905
psi; Abaqus predicts a minimum of 928 psi.