Over the past 15 years important advances have been made in the experimental study of the microstructural changes occurring during the non-linear steady-state creep of single phase crystalline matter at elevated temperatures. Curiously, although the results of these painstaking studies have gone a long way toward elucidating the mechanism of this phenomenon, they have been largely ignored in favour of some simple dislocation mechanisms that are not only inconsistent with these observations, but are also unable to describe correctly the known phenomenology. This review concentrates primarily on the recent experiments on microstructural alterations occurring during creep; however, it also surveys the many mechanistic models that attempt to describe this phenomenon, and finds them all deficient.

Steady-state creep of single-phase crystalline matter at high temperature

Strain analysis of a shear zone in a granodiorite

A model of creep in pure materials

Dynamic recovery during and after steady state deformation of Al-11wt%Zn

Dislocation structure in the high temperature creep of metals and solid solution alloys: a review

Some recent data obtained by investigating dislocation substructure formed in high-temperature creep of several metals are summarized, and some substructural aspects of both steady-state and primary creep are discussed on the basis of the data analysis. It is found that similar densities of dislocations unbound in sub-boundaries (free dislocations), ρ, exist in various metals in steady-state creep at the same value of the ratio of applied stress to elastic modulus. In steady state the mean subgrain diameter is proportional to the reciprocal of the square root of the total dislocation density ρc=ρ+ρSB ρSB being the density of dislocations forming sub-boundaries. Recovery in steady-state creep most probably takes place almost exclusively by annihilation of free dislocations and not by the entry of these dislocations into the sub-boundaries. The total dislocation density was found to increase in the course of primary creep. Most of the dislocations generated go to build the sub-boundaries as the den...

J. Cadek

Papers

Some substructural aspects of high-temperature creep in metals