Time-dependent inelastic deformation of pure copper at low homologous temperature

Deformation mechanisms of time-dependent inelastic behavior of pure metals are attributed to the dislocation motions and their interactions with each other or other kinds of obstacles such as impurities. Mathematical modeling of these mechanisms is generally considered as thermally activated energy of dislocation past obstacles and structural evolution under-way activated motion of dislocations. However, it has been proposed that other mechanism such as stress-rate consideration as mechanically activated energy shall be included as well. In this study, stress-rate change experiments are conducted during room temperature creep test of pure copper. Numerical calculations based upon thermally activated kinetic flow and structural evolution laws are compared with experimental data. Excellent agreement is observed between these two comparisons. It concludes that the mathematical models of thermally activated deformation theory and the structural evolution can completely describe the phenomena of metallic time-dependent inelastic flow at low homologous temperature.