New creep region in pure face-centered cubic metals at low temperatures

Creep behavior was investigated carefully for typical face-centered cubic (fee) metals, i e, high purity Al, Cu, and Pb, below 0 3T(m), where T(m) is the melting temperature. All samples showed marked creep behavior at such low temperatures, with an apparent activation energy of 15-30 kJ mol(-1), a stress exponent of 2-5 and a grain size exponent of 0. These results show a new creep region that has not appeared in deformation mechanism maps of pure fcc metals (C) 2010 Acta Materialia Inc Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.