| Summary: | With an ever increasing demand for generating more economical power, the necessity of expanding the life of conventional and nuclear power plants has become even more crucial than before. For components operating at elevated temperatures, their life can be reduced by processes such as creep crack incubation. This highlights the role of structural integrity of components under such conditions. To study the response of real components operating at high temperatures it is customary to examine creep strain accumulation and creep crack incubation under conditions of constant stress or load. However, practical loading conditions often lie between constant load and displacement controlled conditions and are often associated with "elastic follow-up". Under these conditions, the stresses in the structure still relax but at a slower rate than conventional stress relaxation situations. Therefore, the challenge is to study creep strain accumulation and creep crack incubation for such conditions.
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