Stiffness and damping characteristics of aluminum in creep
Tensile creep tests conducted at 200 C were performed on annealed commercially pure aluminum specimens in order to measure the dominant elevated temperature dislocation processes. Testing consisted of applying small lateral loads to measure flexural stiffness, and vibrating the specimens laterally in order to measure dynamic modulus and internal damping. It was concluded that (1) the strain hardening increased static stiffness and decreased internal damping during early creep, and (2) the dynamic modulus remained essentially constant at the elastic value during creep. These results imply that primary creep may constitute a mechanism of recovery of dislocatory disorder induced by yielding the material during loading, and that the inelastic modulus utilized as a mathematical concept in several creep buckling theories is not a directly measurable material property.