Creep

A creep analysis of a cracked body may be carried out by generating a cracked mesh with appropriate material definitions and analysis controls. This allows the development of creep strain to be studied in a cracked component.

In the Zencrack-Abaqus interface it is also possible to use the Ct-integral evaluation within Abaqus to evaluate the Ct-integral as a function of time. This allows the steady-state value, C*, to be determined for each node along the crack front. As with j-intergal evaluations, Zencrack produces the necessary input request in the cracked mesh for Ct-integrals and also processes the results of the analysis to help with post-processing.

Creep strain in a cracked re-heater drum (fully embedded defect not visible in this external view)

Ct-integral at multiple contours for a crack front node converging to C*