The Influence of Creep Strain on Crack Length Measurements Using the Potential Drop

One of the most common methods for estimating crack extension in the laboratory is electrical potential drop (PD). A key limitation of this technique is that it is sensitive to strains at the crack tip as well as crack extension. When producing J-R curves the onset of crack growth may be identified from a point of inflection on a plot of PD vs. CMOD. For creep crack growth (CCG) tests however, the effects of strain are often ignored. This paper investigates whether a similar method may be applied to CCG testing. A single CCG test was performed on type 316H stainless steel and a point of inflection, similar to that observed during J-R curve testing was identified. A finite element (FE) based approach was used to investigate this phenomenon further. A 3D sequentially-coupled structural-electrical FE model was used to reproduce the experimental PD vs. CMOD plot up to the point of inflection. The model was capable of predicting the general relationship between strain and PD. It predicted the magnitude of the change in PD to within 30%. A simplified 2D FE model was then used to perform a parametric study to investigate whether a similar trend may be expected for a range of materials. Power law tensile and creep properties were investigated with stress exponents of 1, 3 and 10. The results confirm that a point of inflection should be observable for the range of material properties considered