Extended-time-scale creep measurement on Maraging cantilever blade springs

Two controlled temperature facilities were built to induce an accelerated creep rate in a Maraging steel GAS spring and to measure the material's creep over an artificially extended period of time. The data acquisition of the first experiment lasted for almost a year, but then the blades were allowed to creep for six more years before measuring the permanent deformation integrated over time. The data from this first experiment was polluted by a defect in the data acquisition software, but yielded overall creep limits and an evaluation of the Arrhenius acceleration of creep speed with temperature (1.28±0.13 °C−1). The duration of the second experiment was only 1 year but more free of systematic errors. The effective test period of this second experiment (normalized with the Arrhenius acceleration measured in the first experiment) extends in billions of years showing no sign of anomalous creep. The result of both experiments also produced a simple procedure capable of eliminating all practical effects of creep from the Advanced LIGO seismic isolation and suspensions. Measurements of creep under various stress levels, and of the thermal variations of Young's modulus (2.023 (±0.013)×10−4 °C−1) are reported as well.