An Evaluation of Creep Mechanisms in Ultrafine-Grained Metals

摘要

Our earlier published creep data are analyzed for ultrafine-grained pure aluminium and copper processed by equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP). The analysis demonstrates conclusively that creep occurs in the investigated materials after ECAP by the same mechanism as in conventional coarse-grained materials with intergranular dislocation glide and climb as the dominant rate-controlling flow process. Under creep conditions examined in this work diffusion creep is not important in pure aluminium and copper because the ultrafine grains are unstable at elevated and/or high temperature creep and the grains grow sufficiently to preclude any significant contribution from Nabarro-Herring or Coble creep.