PHENOMENOLOGICAL THEORY OF TRANSIENT CREEP

A new creep theory is proposed which takes into account the strain generated during the annihilation of dislocations. This contribution is found to be very significant when recovery is appreciable, and is mainly responsible for the decreasing creep rate associated with the normal primary creep of class II materials. The theory provides excellent semiquantitative rationalization for the types of creep curves presented in the preceding paper. In particular, the theory predicts a change in the shape of the primary creep curve from normal to inverted as recovery becomes less important, i.e. as the applied stress and/or temperature decrease(s). It also predicts a minimum creep rate under certain circumstances, hence pseudo- tertiary behaviour. These different types of creep curves are predicted even though the net dislocation density decreases monotonically with time in all cases. Qualitative rationalization is presented for the inverted transient which always follows a stress drop in class II materials, as well as for the inverted primary and sigmoidal creep behaviour of class I solid solutions. © 1979 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.