CREEP

CASE STUDIES

THE CREEP OF LEAD WATER PIPES

Lead pipes on a 75-year-old building in southern New England. The creepinduced curvature of these pipes is typical of Victorian lead water piping.

The two examples of sagging lead pipes analysed in this case study. All dimensions are in mm.

A map for antimonial lead with a grain size of 50 m, showing the conditions of operation of the pipes. Both deform by diffusional flow.

Antimonial lead with a grain size of 1 mm. If the pipes had this grain size they would deform much more slowly than they do.

CREEP OF A SUPERALLOY TURBINE BLADE

The approximate distribution of axial stress and temperature along a turbine blade operating in the first sage of a typical turbine of the 1960s.
When a turbine is running at a steady speed, centrifugal forces subject each rotor blade to an axial tension. If the blade has a constant cross section, the tensile stress rises linearly from zero at its tip to a maximum at its root. As an example, a rotor of radius r of 0.3 m rotating at an angular velocity of 1000 radians/s (11,000 r.p.m.) induces an axial stress of order 10-3 .

Summary of average steady running conditions on blade

Range of temperature 0.450.58 TM Range of Stress s/ 02.3 x 10-3 Maximum acceptable strain rate ~10-8 /s

Improvements in blade microstructure

Equiaxed Crystal Structure

Directionally Solidified Structure

Single Crystal
From Cervenka, Rolls Royce, 2000

A map for pure nickel with a grain size of 100 m, showing the conditions of operation of the blade

A map for MARM200, with the same grain size as that for the nickel of Fig. 19.10 (100 m). The shaded box shows the conditions of operation of the blade.

A map for MARM200 with a large grain size (10 mm) approximating the creep behaviour of directionally solidified or single crystal blades. The shaded box shows the conditions of operation of the blade.

Superalloys as a class constitute the currently reigning aristocrats of the metallurgical world. They are the alloys which have made jet flight possible, and they show what can be achieved by drawing together and exploiting all the resources of modern physical and process metallurgy in the pursuit of a very challenging objective.
from R.W. Cahn The coming of materials science, 2001.

THE CREEP OF TUNGSTEN LAMP FILAMENTS

Typical light bulb specifications
110 volt single-coiled lamps Burning temperature (C) Design life (s) Turns/metre (m-1) Spacing of turns, S (mm) Wire diameter, d (mm) Coil diameter, 2R (mm) Total length of wire (mm) Total length of coil (mm) Total mass of coil (mg) Number of intermediate supports 25 Watt 22502350 3.6 x 106 2.6 x 104 0.038 0.030 0.15 660 41 9.0 3 40 Watt 24002500 3.6 x 106 2.4 x 104 0.043 0.036 0.14 430 41 7.2 3

Typical dimensions of a 40 Watt, 110 Volt, tungsten filament lamp. The filament is a simple coil of doped tungsten

Summary of conditions under which filaments operate

Power of lamp 25 Watt 40 Watt Range of s/ 01.0 x 10-4 06.2 x 10-5 Range of T/TM 0.680.71 0.720.75 Maximum 3.0 x 10-9 3.6 x 10-9

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