• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.1177-1185
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• 1996

The crack growth under creep condition is one of the major damage mechanisms which determines remaining life of the component operating at high temperatures. In this paper, the creep crack growth by grain boundary cavitation is studied, which is frequently observed failure mechanism for creep brittle materials. As a result of diffusive growth of creep cavities, it is shown that the crack-tip stress field is modified from the original stress distribution by the amount of singularity attenuation parameter which is function of crack growth rate and material properties. Also, the stress relaxation at crack-tip results in the extension of cavitating area by the load dump effect to meet the macroscopic force equilibrium conditdion.