Analysis of strain hardening creep under random uniaxial loading

• Published in: Engineering structures Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 17 - 20
• Main Authors: Kameswara Rao, C.V.S., Raghavan, T.M.S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 1982
• Subjects: loading; Structural design; loading; Structural design
• ISSN: 0141-0296; 1873-7323
• DOI: 10.1016/0141-0296(82)90019-0

Significant advances have taken place in developing methods of analysis of creep and creep rupture under varying stress conditions. However, the attention so far has been focussed on studying creep under deterministic stress histories. Time dependent stress and environmental history of a typical structure element is often definitely not known and it can, at best be described in statistical terms. Idealizing creep as a Markoff process and considering strain hardening theory, a simplified theory is proposed to characterize creep strain under random loading. The random loading refers to statically determinate uniaxial stressing, changing in a stepwise manner with time only and forms an ergodic process. In the light of the feasibility of characterizing the strain distribution under the random loading, an indication is given how a reliability based design approach to creep problems can be developed. The theory and its application are illustrated by a numerical example.