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Abstract
Micron-sized aluminium columns, produced by focused-ion beam milling, were subjected to compressive creep in a nanoindentation machine using a flat-ended tip to study their time-dependent deformation behaviour at room temperature. At constant load, their strain increased almost linearly with time, with sporadic but large strain bursts superimposed. This represents a form of creep behaviour not known beforehand for aluminium. Strain bursts were also observed to occur during reloading at stresses higher than the first yield stress during initial loading.
Acknowledgments
We thank P.C. Wo and the Electron Microscope Unit of HKU for their help. The work described in this paper was supported by two grants from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, P.R. China (Project No. HKU7194/04E and HKU7162/06E), as well as a grant from the University of Hong Kong (no. 10206180).