On high creep activation energies for dispersion strengthened metals

Creep studies on dispersion strengthened metals have often resulted in inexplicably high creep activation energies and high stress exponents. An analysis is presented which shows that the contribution of the temperature dependent elastic modulus to the apparent activation energy can be very large. Two cases are examined in which the difference between the apparent activation energy and the activation energy of self diffusion is almost entirely accounted for by the contribution of the temperature dependent elastic modulus. The modulus correction is particularly important at high temperatures and for materials with high stress exponents.