The number of fossil fueled power plants in electricity generation is still rising, making improvements to their efficiency essential. The development of new materials to withstand the higher service temperatures and pressures of newer, more efficient power plants is greatly aided by physics-based models, which can simulate the microstructural processes leading to their eventual failure. In this work, such a model is developed from classical nucleation theory and diffusion driven growth from vacancy condensation. This model predicts the shape and distribution of cavities which nucleate almost exclusively at grain boundaries during high temperature creep. Cavity radii, number density and phase fraction are validated quantitively against specimens of nickel-based alloys (617 and 625) tested at 700 °C and stresses between 160 and 185 MPa. The model’s results agree well with the experimental results. However, they fail to represent the complex interlinking of cavities which occurs in tertiary creep.

In the field of power engineering, where materials are subjected to high pressures at elevated temperatures for many decades, creep-resistant steels are put to work. Their service life is still, however, finite, as the many changes in their microstructure can merely be mitigated and not avoided. Creep cavitation is one of those changes and, in many cases, ultimately causes failure by rupture. In this work, a model is proposed to simulate the nucleation and growth of cavities during creep. This exclusively physics-based model uses modified forms of Classical Nucleation Theory and the Onsager Extremum Principle in a newly developed Kampmann–Wagner framework. The model is validated on P23 steel which underwent creep rupture experiments at 600 °C and stresses of 50, 70, 80, 90 and 100 MPa for creep times up to 46000 hours. The model predicts qualitatively the shape and prevalence of cavities at different sites in the microstructure, and quantitatively the number density, size of cavities and their phase fraction contributing to a reduction in density. Finally, we find good agreement between the simulation and the experimental results especially at low stresses and longer creep times.