An analytical model is presented for the effect of the interactions of dislocations with precipitate coherency strains on the generation of second-harmonic of Lamb waves in metallic alloys. The cumulative second-harmonic of Lamb wave propagation is shown to depend dominantly on the dislocation density, pinning dislocation length, internal stress due to the coherency strain, volume fraction of the precipitates, and the phase matching degree between the primary Lamb wave and the double frequency Lamb wave (DFLW). Experiments were carried out to introduce controlled levels of creep-induced damage to determine the nonlinear response of Lamb waves in titanium alloy Ti60 plates. A like mountain-shape change in the normalized acoustic nonlinearity of Lamb wave versus the creep loading time has been observed. Microscopic image analyses were performed to interpret the variation of the measured acoustic nonlinearity and to obtain the microstructure parameters of the Ti60 specimens with different creep damages. The analytical model was applied to these creep damaged Ti60 specimens, which revealed a good accordance with the measured results of the nonlinear Lamb waves. These results indicate that the acoustic nonlinearity of Lamb wave increases due to the rising of the precipitation volume fraction and the dislocation density in the early stage, and it decreases as a combined result of the reduction of the precipitation volume fraction and the dislocation density and the increasing mismatch of the phase velocity between the primary Lamb wave and the DFLW after a further creep loading

Interaction between diffusion and stress fields has been investigated extensively in the past. However, most of the previous investigations were focused on the effect of chemical stress on diffusion due to the unbalanced mass transport. In this work, the coupling effects of external mechanical stress and chemical stress on diffusion are studied. A self-consistent diffusion equation including the chemical stress and external mechanical stress gradient is developed under the framework of the thermodynamic theory and Fick's law. For a thin plate subjected to unidirectional tensile stress fields, the external stress coupled diffusion equation is solved numerically with the help of the finite difference method for one-side and both-side charging processes. Results show that, for such two types of charging processes, the external stress gradient will accelerate the diffusion process and thus increase the value of concentration while reducing the magnitude of chemical stress when the direction of diffusion is identical to that of the stress gradient (M•D=1). In contrast, when the direction of diffusion is opposite to that of the stress gradient (M•D=-1), the external stress gradient will obstruct the process of solute penetration by decreasing the value of concentration and increasing the magnitude of chemical stress. For both-side charging process, compared with that without the coupling effect of external stress, an asymmetric distribution of concentration is produced due to the asymmetric mechanical stress field feedback to diffusion.

The existence of multi-axial states of stress cannot be avoided in elevated temperature components. It is essential to understand the associated failure mechanisms and to predict the lifetime in practice. Although metal creep has been studied for about 100 years, many problems are still unsolved, in particular for those involving multi-axial stresses. In this work, a state-of-the-art review of creep analysis and engineering design is carried out, with particular emphasis on the effect of multi-axial stresses. The existing theories and creep design approaches are grouped into three categories, i.e., the classical plastic theory (CPT) based approach, the cavity growth mechanism (CGM) based approach and the continuumdamage mechanics (CDM) based approach. Following above arrangements, the constitutive equations and design criteria are addressed. In the end, challenges on the precise description of the multi-axial creep behavior and then improving the strength criteria in engineering design are presented.