Cyclic creep analysis from elastic finite-element solutions

A uniaxial approach was developed for calculating cyclic creep and stress relaxation at the critical location of a structure subjected to cyclic thermomechanical loading. This approach was incorporated into a simplified analytical procedure for predicting the stress-strain history at a crack initiation site for life prediction purposes. An elastic finite-element solution for the problem was used as input for the simplified procedure. The creep analysis includes a self-adaptive time incrementing scheme. Cumulative creep is the sum of the initial creep, the recovery from the stress relaxation and the incremental creep. The simplified analysis was exercised for four cases involving a benchmark notched plate problem. Comparisons were made with elastic-plastic-creep solutions for these cases using the MARC nonlinear finite-element computer code.