Randomness in creep deformation and failure

One of the salient features of replicated creep and creep-rupture tests is the considerable amount of scatter present in the data. The existence of this scatter can introduce substantial amounts of uncertainty into creep deformation and failure predictions. In this paper, we review the experimental evidence in this regard. We then describe recent analytical efforts to include randomness into creep deformation and failure predictions, both on the micro-and the macro-scale.