FME 451

Materials Science & Engineering IV

Fourth Year
Semester I

Creep failures

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Creep failures
Introduction to Creep Failure

What is creep?
➢ Time – dependent permanent plastic
deformation of materials, which generally occurs at
high temperatures (T > 0.4Tm), under a constant
load or stress.
➢ Time dependent decrease in stress at
constant strain is called stress relaxation,
a consequence of creep.
➢ Creep takes place at stresses much lower
than the yield stress of the material.
➢ Creep is a performance based behaviour. It is not
an intrinsic property of a material.

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Creep failures
Why do we design against creep ?
❖ Creep is an undesirable phenomenon and is often the limiting factor in the
lifetime of a part.
❖ Creep may lead to fracture or excessive undesirable deformation.
❖ Simple deformation occurring over time (even without rupture) can be a
problem, e.g. turbine blades fouling the outer casing.

❖ Complete creep-rupture may occur after prolonged deformation.

❖ Rupture itself may be promoted by altered loading conditions due to the on-going
deformation
➢ Creep is important in applications such as: steam turbine blades, gas turbines
(jet engines), power plants (boilers and steam lines) which must operate at high
stresses and high temperatures without any changes in dimensions.

➢ Also occur at room temperature in some materials such as lead, polymers.

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Creep failures
Why do we design against creep ?
➢ Occurrence of creep is controlled by the homologous temperature (Th),
defined as the ratio of absolute operating temperature to absolute melting
temperature.
𝑇𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔
𝑇ℎ =
𝑇𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔
➢ Creep becomes important if Th >0.3 to 0.4 for metals and Th > 0.4 to 0.5 for
ceramics.
➢ For example:
❖ Tungsten for lamp filaments melts at 3000°C. Thus, it
does not creep at room temperature, but creeps at
lamp operating temperatures of about 2000°C. Lamp
filaments fail by sagging (creeping) under their own
weight till the coils touch. Creep life to rupture ~ 1000
hrs
❖ Many polymers creep at room temperature.
❖ Steel melts at about 1500°C and is known to
creep in steam plant applications at 600°C. 4
Creep failures
Introduction

➢ In the design of high temperature components, there is always allowance

for emergencies:

❖ Impact situations, e.g. bird strike on an aeroengine – which leads to

sharply increased stress levels.

❖ Fires - increased temperature levels

❖ Flying on one engine, or secondary failure in a power plant – leads to
significantly increased stress-levels for a required period

➢ In all of the above situations, the service conditions may be very severe for a short
time, and there is need to know how long such a part will operate under these
extreme conditions without complete failure.

➢ Why creep at high temperature?

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Creep failures
Theory of creep – why creep at high Temp?

1. High temperature causes an increase in the mobility of atoms and vacancies.

❖ This results in an increase in the diffusion rate as atomic mobility is related
to diffusion as described by Ficks Law.
❖ Creep is a diffusion controlled mechanism and hence will
increase with temperature.

Atomic diffusion based on (a) the direct exchange mechanism, (b) the ring mechanism and (c) the vacancy mechanism.
D = diffusion coefficient
M = atomic mobility
T = Absolute temperature
kB = Boltzmann constant

2. The number of vacancies increases with increase in temperature.

❖ Since vacancies aid diffusion, creep becomes easier.
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Creep failures
Theory of creep – why creep at high Temp?

3. Slip becomes easier at high temperature.

❖ Moreover, other slip systems, which are dormant at low temperature,
may become active when the temperature is raised.
❖ Easy slip means easier deformation leading to creep.
❖ Other diffusion controlled mechanisms affecting creep are dislocation climb
and grain boundary sliding.

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Creep failures
Theory of creep – why creep at high Temp?

4. High temperature may cause changes in microstructure e.g., in steels,

cementite may break down and eventually dissolve.
❖ In precipitations strengthened alloys, precipitate dissolution or over-
aging may occur. These lead to a weakening of the material, easier
deformation, and hence creep.
5. High temperature may also result in oxidation and intergranular
corrosion and cause deformation at grain boundaries.

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Creep failures
Creep Test

➢ Different tests may be required to evaluate high temperature properties, based on

the time scale of the service requirements.
1. High Temperature Tensile Test
❖ Similar to a short term room temperature test, i.e. completed in a few
minutes and producing stress versus strain curves at specific temperatures.
✓ Provides useful data for short term applications such as rocket parts.
2. Creep Test
❖ Measures dimensional changes accurately at constant high
temperature and constant stress
✓ Useful for long term applications which are strain limited, such as turbine blades.
3. Stress Rupture Test
❖ Measures time to failure at specified stress and temperature.
✓ Useful for applications where some strain can be tolerated but failure must be
avoided, such as large furnace housings.

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Creep failures
Creep Test

➢ A typical creep test (ASTM Standard

E139), involve subjecting a specimen to a
constant load or stress while maintaining
the temperature constant;
➢ The loads employed are typically below the
elastic limit.
➢ The strain (typically engineering strain) is
computed from the elongation
➢ Strain is plotted as a function of elapsed
time.

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Creep failures
Creep Test

➢ Upon application of the load, there is an

instantaneous deformation 𝜺𝟎, that is totally
elastic.
➢ The resulting creep curve consists of three
regions:
❖ Primary/transient creep
▪ Creep strain decreases with time
▪ Effect of work hardening more than
recovery.
❖ Secondary/steady state creep
𝜺𝟎 ▪ Stage of minimum creep strain rate
→ ~ constant.
▪ Work hardening is balanced by recovery.
Fig: Typical creep curve of strain versus time ❖ Tertiary creep
at constant load and constant elevated temp. ▪ Necking of specimen starts in this stage.
▪ Specimen failure processes set in.

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Creep failures
Creep Test

a. Stage I- Primary/ transient creep

➢ This stage is characterized by continuously decreasing creep rate i.e., the
slope of the curve decreases with time.
➢ The material experiences an increase in creep resistance or
strain hardening/resistance to plastic deformation i.e. deformation
becomes more difficult as the material is strained.

b. Stage II - Secondary /Steady state creep

➢ The strain rate is minimum and constant—i.e., the plot becomes linear.
➢ This is often the stage of creep that is of the longest duration.
➢ The constancy of creep rate is explained on the basis of a balance between
the competing processes of strain hardening and recovery,
➢ Recovery is the process by which a material becomes softer and retains its
ability to experience constant deformation.
➢ Fracture does not occur.

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Creep failures
Creep Test

c. Stage III: Tertiary Creep (failure-rupture)

➢ This stage is characterized by an increase in strain rate and
ultimate failure/rapture.
➢ The failure results from microstructural and/or metallurgical
changes—e.g., grain boundary separation, and the formation of
internal cracks, cavities, and voids.
➢ Also, for tensile loads, a neck may form at some point within the
deformation region. Necking lead to a decrease in the effective
cross-sectional area and an increase in strain rate.

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Creep failures
Creep Test

➢ The most important parameter from a creep test is the:

❖ Slope of the secondary portion of the creep curve (∆ 𝜀 / ∆ 𝑡 );
❖ This is often called the minimum or steady-state creep rate 𝒔.
❖ It is the engineering design parameter that is considered for critical
long-life applications, such as:
✓ A nuclear power plant component that is scheduled to operate for
several decades. Failure is not an option.
➢ However, for many relatively short-life creep situations:
❖ E.g., rocket motor nozzles
❖ Time to rupture, or the rupture lifetime, t 𝒓 , is the dominant design
consideration.
❖ For the determination of time to rapture, creep tests must be
conducted to the point of failure; these are termed creep rupture
tests.

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Creep failures
Mechanisms of creep

➢ Stress and temperature are the two important variables, which not only
affect the creep rate, but also the operative mechanism.
➢ The chief creep
deformation
mechanisms can be
grouped into:
❖ Dislocation related
❖ Diffusional related
❖ Grain
boundary
sliding

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Creep failures
Mechanisms of creep

Dislocation related
➢ Increased mobility of dislocations occurs by diffusion of both vacancies
and atoms and contribute to creep.
➢ This explains dependence of power law creep on activation energy for
self diffusion.
❖ Cross-slip:
▪ Herein screw dislocations cross-slip by thermal activation and give
rise to plastic strain as a function of time.
❖ Dislocation climb:
▪ Edge dislocations piled up against an obstacle can climb to another
slip plane and cause plastic deformation in response to stress.
▪ This gives rise to strain as a function of time. It is to be noted that at
low temperatures, these dislocations (being pinned) are sessile
and become glissile only at high temperatures.

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Creep failures
Mechanisms of creep

Diffusion related
➢ In response to the applied stress vacancies preferentially move
from surfaces/interfaces (g.b.) of specimen transverse to the
stress axis to surfaces/interfaces parallel to the stress
axis→ thus causing elongation.
➢ Diffusion of vacancies in one direction can be thought of as
flow of
matter in the opposite direction..

➢ This process, like dislocation creep (involving climb), is

controlled by the diffusion of vacancies (but diffusional creep
does not require dislocations to operate).
➢ The diffusion could occur predominantly via the lattice (at
relatively high temperatures and low stresses) or via grain
boundaries (at low temperatures).

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Creep failures
Mechanisms of creep

Grain boundary sliding

➢ At high temperatures the grain boundary becomes weaker than the
grain interior and two grains can slide past one another due to
shear stress.
➢ The larger the grain size, the better a material’s resistance to
creep.
➢ Relative to grain size, smaller grains permit more grain
boundary sliding, which results in higher creep rates.
➢ This effect may be contrasted to the influence of grain size on
the mechanical behavior at low temperatures [i.e., increase in
both strength and toughness.

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Creep failures
Mechanisms of creep

Grain boundary sliding

➢ The sliding of grain boundaries gives rise to cavitation and triple point cracking.
➢ If these wedge cracks are not healed by diffusion (or slip), microstructural damage
will accumulate and will lead to failure of the specimen.

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Creep failures
STRESS AND TEMPERATURE EFFECTS

➢ Both temperature and the level of the

applied stress influence the creep
characteristics.
➢ At a temperature substantially below 0.4Tm,
and after the initial deformation, the strain is
virtually independent of time.
➢ With either increasing stress or temperature,
the following will be noted:
❖ the instantaneous strain at the time of
stress application increases,
❖ the steady-state creep rate
increases, and
❖ the rupture lifetime decreases.

Fig. Influence of stress s and temperature T on creep behavior.

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Creep failures
STRESS AND TEMPERATURE EFFECTS

➢ The results of creep rupture tests are most commonly presented as the
logarithm of stress versus the logarithm of rupture lifetime.

Fig: Stress (logarithmic

scale) versus rupture lifetime
(logarithmic scale) for an S-
590 alloy at four
temperatures. [The
composition (in wt%) of S-
590 is as follows: 20.0 Cr,
19.4 Ni, 19.3 Co, 4.0 W, 4.0
Nb, 3.8 Mo, 1.35 Mn, 0.43 C,
and the balance Fe.]

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Creep failures
Creep curves

➢ A plot of the logarithm of stress versus the logarithm of creep rate yields a straight
line with slope of 𝒏 as shown in the figure below for an S-590 alloy.

Fig: Stress (logarithmic scale)

versus steady-state creep
rate (logarithmic scale) for an
S-590 alloy at four
temperatures.

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Fracture Mechanics

Questions

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