Efforts to prevent deformations from long term stress, referred to as creep, consist of manipulating alloys to reduce coarsening and migration of individual grains within the metal.
Since grain size decreases with high solute concentration, the rate of coarsening is slowed until inconsequential.
Oxide-dispersion strengthened (ODS) ferritic alloys16 and molybdenum alloys17’s great strength and ductility were also credited to these nanostructures.
This growth was then compared to the coarsening rate of an individual grain of Ni placed in heat of 300 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes.
[4] In 2012, a tungsten (W) and 20% titanium (Ti) nanocrystalline alloy after a week of exposure to heat of 1100 degrees Celsius in an argon atmosphere was claimed by the researchers to have displayed no change in grain size from the initial 20 nm.