Micromechanics of Primary Creep and Creep-Fatigue Interactions in Structural Materials

Creep is an important deformation process that can limit design lifetime of engineering components in a wide range of industries.  In practice variations in service demands typically lead to fluctuations in stress and temperature levels making creep-fatigue interactions important.
During primary creep strains rates are relatively high initially and vary with strain implying that the internal dislocation microstructure is changing.  Similar transients occur as loading conditions change during creep-fatigue.  This project will use mechanical testing and advanced characterisation methods in particular HR-EBSD to study the evolution of dislocation density and residual stress distributions between cell wall and cell interiors as a function of loading conditions.  This experimental data will be used to construct improved microstructurally informed models for time dependent plasticity in creep-fatigue conditions. 
Materials systems of interest include Cu-Zr-Cr and other Cu alloys, 316SS and newer Zr alloys - all potentially important for fusion power applications.
cu ebsd gnd