Effect of loading rate on creep of phosphorous doped copper

Creep testing of copper intended for nuclear waste disposal has been performed on continuous creep tests machines at a temperature of 75 deg C. The loading time has been varied from 1 hour to 6 months. The rupture strain including both loading and creep strains does not differ from traditional dead weight lever creep test rigs. The loading strain increases with increasing loading time, at the expense of the creep strain. The time dependence of the creep strain has been modelled taking athermal plastic deformation and creep into account. During loading the contribution to the strain from the athermal plastic deformation dominates until the stress is close to the constant load level. When the constant load has been reached there is no more athermal strain and all of the strain comes from creep.