Technical Notes - Possible Role of Diffusion in the Creep of Alpha and Gamma Iron

RESULTS of recent investigations1 on the creep of metals at high temperatures have revealed that the activation energies for creep of pure metals, AH,., about equals the respective activation energies for self-diffusion, hHD. This fact strongly suggests that the rate-controlling process in creep at high temperatures might be that of dislocation climb, as first postulated by Mott.' It would be desirable, however, to relate the creep rate of a metal at a given temperature and stress with actual diffusivity data, rather than with a comparison of the tempera-