Modeling of primary and secondary creep for a wide stress range

Abstract Many materials exhibit a stress range dependent creep behavior. The power–law creep observed for a certain stress range changes to the viscous type creep if the stress value decreases. Recently published experimental data for advanced heat resistant steels indicate that the high creep exponent (in the range 5–12 for power–law behaviour) may decrease to the low value of approximately 1 within the stress range relevant for engineering structures. The aim of this paper is to confirm the necessity of the assumption of the stress range dependent power–law–viscous creep transition for the solution of stress relaxation problems affected by creep behavior at elevated temperatures. A constitutive model for the minimum creep rate is introduced to describe both the linear and the power law creep depending upon the stress level. The proposed constitutive model includes a strain hardening function to describe the primary creep stage. To demonstrate the existence of the linear creep behaviour in the low stress range of application area and the influence of the primary creep behaviour on relaxation, several solutions of a uniaxial stress relaxation problem are presented for the loading values relevant to engineering applications. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)