Monotonic creep method

A constant tensile-stress method is outlined in ISO 6252, in which a test specimen is exposed to a constant tensile force while immersed in a stress cracking agent so as to determine the time to rupture under a specified stress. This uniaxial test leads to the determination of the lifetime of the specimen with accuracy, but it is time consuming and requires complex equipment. Variations of this test include a tensile creep test that monitors the strain and a monotonic creep test that uses a constant stress rate instead of a fixed stress [1]. 

In addition to those standardized tests, two other test methods, monotonic creep and microhardness, have been developed by Hough and Wright [48]. In the monotonic creep test, the strain response to a constant stress rate is monitored. The deviation of the stress-strain characteristics in air and in the fluid of interest is taken to be the initiation of ESC. This method is shown to differentiate to a high resolution between polymers, and in the short term, the ESCR of polymer/fluid pairs that exhibit mild/weak interactions can be distinguished. The microhardness method, in which a pyramidal diamond indentor is pressed into the surface of the polymer component at a known load and for a known time, has the potential for mass screening of plastic/fluid compatibility, including extraction as well as absorption, and should be of interest to polymer suppliers. 

Solids of different classes, including polymers, are characterized typically with a complex non-uniform structure on various morphological levels and the presence of different local defects. The theoretical approaches describe the deformation of solid polymers via local defects in the form of dislocations (or dislocation analogies ) and disclinations, or in terms of dislocation-disclination models even for non-crystalline polymers [271-275, 292]. In principle, this presumes the localized character and jump-like evolution of polymer deformation at various levels. Meantime, the structural heterogeneity and localized microdeformation processes revealed in solids by microscopic or diffraction methods, could not be discerned typically in the mechanical (stress-strain or creep) curves obtained by the traditional techniques. This supports the idea of deformation as a monotonic process with a smoothly varying rate. Creep process has been investigated in the numerous studies in terms of average rates (steady-state creep). For polymers, as the exclusion. 

Miyano et al. propose a method to predict creep strength Oc from the master curve for static strength using the linear cumulative damage law. fs(o) and 4(0) are static and creep failure time, respectively for stress 0. It is supposed that the material experiences a monotonic stress history o(f) for 0 < t < t where t is the failure time for this stress history. The linear cumulative damage law states ... 

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