The Characteristics of Creep in Metallic Materials Processed by Severe Plastic Deformation

Processing through the application of severe plastic deformation (SPD), as in equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP), provides an opportunity for achieving exceptional grain refinement to the submicrometer or even the nanometer level. After SPD processing, these materials may be conveniently used for evaluating the effect of a reduced grain size on the creep behaviour at elevated temperatures under testing conditions of constant load or constant stress. This report provides an overview of the creep properties of ECAP-processed metals with an emphasis on the microstructural characteristics developed by SPD, on their thermal stability and especially on the creep mechanisms that control their flow behaviour. For convenience, these properties are generally compared with the creep behaviour of coarse-grained (CG) samples of the same materials tested under identical conditions.