Creep

Summary

Creep is defined as the time-dependent deformation of materials under stress at elevated temperature. The rate at which a material will creep is dependent upon its strength, the imposed stress (thus pressure) and the metal temperature. A plot of plastic strain versus the log of time typically represents the creep response of a material in three stages.

Unexpected creep may be the result of coke formation (coking) and decoking operations – such as pigging or steam decoking – may cause erosive damage to equipment.