ABSTRACT
The term creep has often been used in the literature to identify the time-dependent straining of refractories or other materials in general. There are two tests to evaluate or quantify the time dependent straining. They are the creep test and the relaxation test. If the refractory user desires to include the creep response of his refractory materials under consideration, it would be a prudent design procedure to request creep data for the materials under consideration from the refractory manufacturer. The stress-controlled loading on a refractory lining structure implies that the internal equilibrating stress can be defined by using only the structure geometry. In summary, for a lining exposed to a stress-controlled loading, the creep strain will continue to increase in time. There are some exceptions, but typically the stress-controlled load is constant in time causing the creep strain to continuously increase in time.
