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Creep is the term used to describe the tendency of a solid material to slowly move or deform permanently under the influence of stresses. It occurs as a result of long term exposure to levels of stress that are below the yield strength or ultimate strength of the material. Creep is more severe in materials that are subjected to heat for long periods, and near the melting point. It is often observed in glasses. Creep always increases with temperature. Image File history File links Wikitext. ... This article is about engineering. ... For the hazard, see corrosive. ... In materials science, fatigue is the progressive, localised, and permanent structural damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic or fluctuating strains at nominal stresses that have maximum values less than (often much less than) the static yield strength of the material. ... For other uses, see Fracture (disambiguation). ... In physics, melting is the process of heating a solid substance to a point (called the melting point) where it turns into a liquid. ... Thermal shock and thermal loading refer to the disfuntion (and perhaps, crack) of a material due to the heating, especially non-stationary and non-uniform. ... For other uses, see Wear (disambiguation). ... The yield strength or yield point of a material is defined in engineering and materials science as the stress at which a material begins to deform plastically. ... Stress is a measure of force per unit area within a body. ... Yield strength, or the yield point, is defined in engineering as the amount of strain that a material can undergo before moving from elastic deformation into plastic deformation. ... Ultimate strength is an attribute directly related to a material, rather than just specific specimen of the material, and as such is quoted force per unit of cross section area (N/m²). For example, the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of AISI 1018 Steel is 440 MN/m². In general, the... Wax and paraffin are amorphous. ...

The rate of this deformation is a function of the material properties, exposure time, exposure temperature and the applied load (stress). Depending on the magnitude of the applied stress and its duration, the deformation may become so large that a component can no longer perform its function — for example creep of a turbine blade will cause the blade to contact the casing, resulting in the failure of the blade. Creep is usually of concern to engineers and metallurgists when evaluating components that operate under high stresses or high temperatures. Creep is not necessarily a failure mode, but is instead a deformation mechanism. Moderate creep in concrete is sometimes welcomed because it relieves tensile stresses that otherwise may have led to cracking. For other uses, see Temperature (disambiguation). ... Stress has different meanings in different fields: Look up stress in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying scientific knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that realize a desired objective and meet specified criteria. ... Georg Agricola, author of De re metallica, an important early book on metal extraction Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their compounds, which are called alloys. ...

Unlike brittle fracture, creep deformation does not occur suddenly upon the application of stress. Instead, strain accumulates as a result of long-term stress. Creep deformation is "time-dependent" deformation. A fracture is the separation of a body into two, or more, pieces under the action of stress. ...

The temperature range in which creep deformation may occur differs in various materials. For example, Tungsten requires a temperature in the thousands of degrees before creep deformation can occur while ice formations such as the Antarctic ice cap will creep in freezing temperatures. Generally, the minimum temperature required for creep deformation to occur is 30% of the melting point for metals and 40-50% of melting point for ceramics. Virtually any material will creep upon approaching its melting temperature. Since the minimum temperature is relative to melting point, creep can be seen at relatively low temperatures for some materials. Plastics and low-melting-temperature metals, including many solders, creep at room temperature as can be seen marked in old lead hot-water pipes. Planetary ice is often at a high temperature relative to its melting point, and creeps. For other uses, see Tungsten (disambiguation). ... Greek ἀνταρκτικός, opposite the arctic) is a continent surrounding the Earths South Pole. ... An ice cap is a dome-shaped ice mass that covers less than 50,000 km² of land area (usually covering a highland area). ... The melting point of a solid is the temperature range at which it changes state from solid to liquid. ... For alternative meanings see metal (disambiguation). ... Ceramics can refer to: Ceramic, a type of material Ceramics (art), a fine art. ... General Name, Symbol, Number lead, Pb, 82 Chemical series Post-transition metals or poor metals Group, Period, Block 14, 6, p Appearance bluish gray Standard atomic weight 207. ...

Creep deformation is important not only in systems where high temperatures are endured such as nuclear power plants, jet engines and heat exchangers, but also in the design of many everyday objects. For example, metal paper clips are stronger than plastic ones because plastics creep at room temperatures. Aging glass windows are often erroneously used as an example of this phenomenon: measurable creep would only occur at temperatures above the glass transition temperature around 900°F/500°C. A nuclear power station. ... A Pratt and Whitney turbofan engine for the F-15 Eagle is tested at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, USA. The tunnel behind the engine muffles noise and allows exhaust to escape. ... A heat exchanger is a device built for efficient heat transfer from one fluid to another, whether the fluids are separated by a solid wall so that they never mix, or the fluids are directly contacted. ... This article is about the material. ...

An example of an application involving creep deformation is the design of tungsten lightbulb filaments. Sagging of the filament coil between its supports increases with time due to creep deformation caused by the weight of the filament itself. If too much deformation occurs, the adjacent turns of the coil touch one another, causing an electrical short and local overheating, which quickly leads to failure of the filament. The coil geometry and supports are therefore designed to limit the stresses caused by the weight of the filament, and a special tungsten alloy with small amounts of oxygen trapped in the crystallite grain boundaries is used to slow the rate of coble creep.

In steam turbine power plants, steam pipes carry superheated vapor at high temperatures (1050°F/566°C) and high pressures of 3500 psi (24.1 MPa) or greater. In modern jet engines, temperatures can reach up to 1400°C (2550°F) and initiate creep deformation in even advanced-coated turbine blades. For these reasons, it is crucial for public and operational safety to understand creep deformation behavior of engineering materials.

Stages of creep

In the initial stage, known as primary creep, the strain rate is relatively high, but slows with increasing strain. The strain rate eventually reaches a minimum and becomes near constant. This is known as secondary or steady-state creep. This stage is the most understood. The characterized "creep strain rate" typically refers to the rate in this secondary stage. Stress dependence of this rate depends on the creep mechanism. In tertiary creep, the strain rate exponentially increases with strain.

Mechanisms of creep

The mechanism of creep depends on temperature and stress. The various methods are:

• Thermally activated glide - e.g., via cross-slip
• Climb-assisted glide - here the climb is an enabling mechanism, allowing dislocations to get around obstacles
• Climb - here the strain is actually accomplished by climb
• Grain boundary diffusion
• Bulk diffusion

General creep equation

where ε is the creep strain, C is a constant dependent on the material and the particular creep mechanism, m and b are exponents dependent on the creep mechanism, Q is the activation energy of the creep mechanism, σ is the applied stress, d is the grain size of the material, k is Boltzmann's constant, and T is the absolute temperature.

Dislocation creep

At high stresses (relative to the shear modulus), creep is controlled by the movement of dislocations. When a stress is applied to a material, plastic deformation occurs due to the movement of dislocations in the slip plane. Materials contain a variety of defects, for example solute atoms, that act as obstacles to dislocation motion. Creep arises from this because of the phenomenon of dislocation climb. At high temperatures vacancies in the crystal can diffuse to the location of a dislocation and cause the dislocation to move to an adjacent slip plane. By climbing to adjacent slip planes dislocations can get around obstacles to their motion, allowing further deformation to occur. Because it takes time for vacancies to diffuse to the location of a dislocation this results in time dependent strain, or creep. Shear strain In materials science, shear modulus or modulus of rigidity, denoted by G, or sometimes S or μ, is defined as the ratio of shear stress to the shear strain:[1] where = shear stress; is the force which acts is the area on which the force acts = shear strain; is... In materials science, a dislocation is a crystallographic defect, or irregularity, within a crystal structure. ...

For dislocation creep Q = Q_{self diffusion}, m = 4-6, and b=0. Therefore dislocation creep has a strong dependence on the applied stress and no grain size dependence.

Some alloys exhibit a very large stress exponent (n > 10), and this has typically been explained by introducing a "threshold stress," σ_th, below which creep can't be measured. The modified power law equation then becomes: where A, Q and n can all be explained by conventional mechanisms (so ).

Nabarro-Herring Creep

Nabarro-Herring creep is a form of diffusion controlled creep. In N-H creep atoms diffuse through the lattice causing grains to elongate along the stress axis. For Nabarro-Herring creep k is related to the diffusion coefficient of atoms through the lattice, Q = Q_{self diffusion}, m=1, and b=2. Therefore N-H creep has a weak stress dependence and a moderate grain size dependence, with the creep rate decreasing as grain size is increased.

Nabarro-Herring creep is found to be strongly temperature dependent. For lattice diffusion of atoms to occur in a material, neighboring lattice sites or interstitial sites in the crystal structure must be free. A given atom must also overcome the energy barrier to move from its current site (it lies in an energetically favorable potential well) to the nearby vacant site (another potential well). The general form of the diffusion equation is D = D_oExp(Ea / KT) where Do has a dependence on both the attempted jump frequency and the number of nearest neighbor sites and the probability of the sites being vacant. Thus there is a double dependence upon temperature. At higher temperatures the diffusivity increases due to the direct temperature dependence of the equation, the increase in vacancies through Schottky defect formation, and an increase in the average energy of atoms in the material. Nabarro-Herring creep dominates at very high temperatures relative to a material's melting temperature.

Coble Creep

Main article: Coble creep

Coble creep is a second form of diffusion controlled creep. In Coble creep the atoms diffuse along grain boundaries to elongate the grains along the stress axis. This causes Coble creep to have a stronger grain size dependence than N-H creep. For Coble creep k is related to the diffusion coefficient of atoms along the grain boundary, Q = Q_{grain boundary diffusion}, m=1, and b=3. Because Q_{grain boundary diffusion} < Q_{self diffusion}, Coble creep occurs at lower temperatures than N-H creep. Coble creep is still temperature dependent, as the temperature increases so does the grain boundary diffusion. However, since the number of nearest neighbors is effectively limited along the interface of the grains, and thermal generation of vacancies along the boundaries is less prevalent, the temperature dependence is not as strong as in Nabarro-Herring creep. It also exhibits the same linear dependence on stress as N-H creep. ‎A diagram showing how atoms and vacancies move through a grain as the mechanism of Coble Creep Coble Creep is named after Robert L. Coble, who first reported his theory of how materials Creep over time in 1962 in the Journal of Applied Physics[1] . Coble Creep occurs through the...

Creep of Polymers

Creep can occur in polymers and metals which are considered viscoelastic materials. When a polymeric material is subjected to an abrupt force, the response can be modeled using the Kelvin-Voigt Model. In this model, the material is represented by a Hookean spring and a Newtonian dashpot in parallel. The creep strain is given by: A polymer (from Greek: πολυ, polu, many; and μέρος, meros, part) is a substance composed of molecules with large molecular mass composed of repeating structural units, or monomers, connected by covalent chemical bonds. ... This article is about metallic materials. ... Viscoelasticity, also known as anelasticity, describes materials that exhibit both viscous and elastic characteristics when undergoing plastic deformation. ... A Kelvin-Voigt material, also called a Voigt material, is a viscoelastic material having the properties both of elasticity and viscosity. ... Hookes law accurately models the physical properties of common mechanical springs for small changes in length. ... Generally speaking, Newtonian refers to the scientific work of Isaac Newton, e. ... A dashpot is a mechanical device, a damper which resists motion via viscous friction. ...

Where:

• σ = applied stress
• C₀ = instantaneous creep compliance
• C = creep compliance coefficient
• τ = retardation time
• f(τ) = distribution of retardation times

Applied stress (a) and induced strain (b) as functions of time over an extended period for a viscoelastic material.

Applied stress (a) and induced strain (b) as functions of time over a short period for a viscoelastic material.

When subjected to a step constant stress, viscoelastic materials experience a time-dependent increase in strain. This phenomenon is known as viscoelastic creep. Image File history File linksMetadata Creep1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Creep1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Creep2. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Creep2. ...

At a time t0, a viscoelastic material is loaded with a constant stress that is maintained for a sufficiently long time period. The material responds to the stress with a strain that increases until the material ultimately fails. When the stress is maintained for a shorter time period, the material undergoes an initial strain until a time t1, after which the strain immediately decreases (discontinuity) then gradually decreases at times t > t1 to a residual strain.

Viscoelastic creep data can be presented in one of two ways. Total strain can be plotted as a function of time for a given temperature or temperatures. Below a critical value of applied stress, a material may exhibit linear viscoelasticity. Above this critical stress, the creep rate grows disproportionately faster. The second way of graphically presenting viscoelastic creep in a material is by plotting the creep modulus (constant applied stress divided by total strain at a particular time) as a function of time.^[1] Below its critical stress, the viscoelastic creep modulus is independent of stress applied. A family of curves describing strain versus time response to various applied stress may be represented by a single viscoelastic creep modulus versus time curve if the applied stresses are below the material's critical stress value.

Additionally, the molecular weight of the polymer of interest is known to affect its creep behavior. The effect of increasing molecular weight tends to promote secondary bonding between polymer chains and thus make the polymer more creep resistant. Similarly, aromatic polymers are even more creep resistant due to the added stiffness from the rings. Both molecular weight and aromatic rings add to polymers' thermal stability, increasing the creep resistance of a polymer. (Meyers and Chawla, 1999, 573)

Both polymers and metals can creep.^[2] Polymers experience significant creep at all temperatures above ~-200°C, however there are three main differences between polymetric and metallic creep. Metallic creep:^[2]

• is not linearly viscoelastic
• is not recoverable
• only significant at high temperatures

Other examples

• Though mostly due to the reduced yield stress at higher temperatures, the Collapse of the World Trade Center was due in part to creep from increased temperature operation.
• The creep rate of hot pressure-loaded components in a nuclear reactor at power can be a significant design-constraint, since the creep rate is enhanced by the flux of energetic particles.
• Creep was blamed for the Big Dig tunnel ceiling collapse in Boston, Massachusetts that occurred in July 2006 [1]

Ground Zero debris with markup showing building locations. ... Core of a small nuclear reactor used for research. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Boston redirects here. ... July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Stress relaxation
• Hysteresis
• Viscoelasticity
• Biomaterial
• Biomechanics
• Brittle-ductile transition zone

Stress relaxation is a term that describes the decrease in stress over time that occurs when a body is suddenly strained and the strain is maintained at a constant magnitude afterward. ... A system with hysteresis can be summarised as a system that may be in any number of states, independent of the inputs to the system. ... Viscoelasticity, also known as anelasticity, describes materials that exhibit both viscous and elastic characteristics when undergoing plastic deformation. ... In surgery, a biomaterial is a synthetic or natural material used to replace part of a living system or to function in intimate contact with living tissue. ... Biomechanics is the research and analysis of the mechanics of living organisms or the application and derivation of engineering principles to and from biological systems. ... The brittle-ductile transition zone is the zone in the Earths crust, at an approximate depth of 10-15 km (18-20km) at which rock becomes less likely to fracture, and more likely to deform ductilely by creep. ...

References

1. ^ Rosato, et. al (2001): "Plastics Design Handbook," 63-64.
2. ^ ^{a b} McCrum, N.G, Buckley, C.P; & Bucknall, C.B (2003). Principles of Polymer Engineering. Oxford Science Publications. ISBN 0-19-856526-7. 

• Ashby, Michael F.; & Jones, David R. H. (1980). Engineering Materials 1: An Introduction to their Properties and Applications. Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-026138-8. 
• Frost, Harold J.; & Ashby, Michael F. (1982). Deformation-Mechanism Maps: The Plasticity and Creep of Metals and Ceramics. Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-029337-9. 
• Turner, S (2001). "Creep of Polymeric Materials". Encyclopedia of Materials: Science and Technology. Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.. 1813-1817. ISBN 0-08-043152-6. 
• Van Vliet, Krystyn J. (2006); "3.032 Mechanical Behavior of Materials", [2]

External links

• Deformation-Mechanism Maps, The Plasticity and Creep of Metals and Ceramics
• NIST WTC Briefing
• Creep Analysis Research Group - Politecnico di Torino