Long-term creep rupture strength assessment: Development of the European collaborative creep committee post-assessment tests

The European Collaborative Creep Committee was founded in 1991/1992 by European industrial and Research Organisations to harmonise and exchange the scientific activities in the field of long-duration creep. Besides the creep strength assessment activity, during the whole period of its existence ECCC supported the Working Group I Creep Data Generation and Assessment Procedures that was responsible for the set-up, maintenance and adaptation to new situations of the ECCC Creep Strength Assessment Procedure, the core of which are the post-assessment tests (PATs). The innovative view and the from this derived reversed approach on data assessment, allowing all procedures to be potentially applied as long as a written guidance is available and as long as it does fulfil all PATs, permitted outstanding progress and substantial gain in reliability of the ECCC strength determination. The present contribution summarises the ECCC history from the point of view of data assessment procedure optimisation, application to different data set types for different assessment purposes and evolution up to the latest computerised versions, which simplify and accelerate the check on PATs. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.