A Study on Small-Scale Creep near a Crack Tip at High Temperatures

Abstract

This article introduces a paper on the small-scale creep effect in creep crack initiation and growth. The paper was published in the Journal of Society of Materials Science, Japan. Although it is written in Japanese, it is worldly well-known in the research area of high temperature fracture mechanics, because of its simple and useful equation describing the small-scale creep condition. The derivation of the equation is described below, together with the states of the arts in creep crack research, and the episodes about the paper. Due to recent severe economical and environmental requirements for plants and their components operated at high temperatures, their operating temperatures have increased considerably. Many of the plants and their components are then operated in the creep range where creep deformation is significant, and are also subjected to non-steady loads. To＋