Creep Behavior of a Zirconium Alloy Processed by Equal-Channel Angular Pressing

A Zr-2.5 wt%Nb alloy was processed by equal-channel angular pressing and then tested under creep conditions at 623 K using a tensile stress within the range from 120 to 300 MPa. The results show conventional power-law creep with a stress exponent of n > 3 which is consistent with an intragranular dislocation process involving the glide and climb of dislocations. It is demonstrated that diffusion creep is not important in these tests. For comparison purposes, the experiments were conducted using both the unprocessed alloy and after processing by equal-channel angular pressing. It was found that under same testing conditions the measured minimum creep rates in the pressed alloy with ultrafine grain sizes were faster than in the same alloy in a coarse-grained unprocessed condition.