An analysis of special features of manifestation of the creep acceleration effect in polycrystalline metals and alloys in the presence of grain-boundary diffusion fluxes of an impurity from an external medium is made. It is noted that in certain cases where the diffusion properties of sub-boundary regions differ greatly from those within the boundary and in the bulk of the grain (e.g., in materials with submicrocrystalline structure (grain size 0.1-0.5 µm) and/or in the case of diffusion along the grain boundary of a strongly segregating impurity), conventional theoretical methods of calculation of the temperature-temporal range of the occurrence of the above effect have to be corrected. Based on the analysis of the experimental data, feasible solutions to the problem are discussed.It is well known that grain-boundary diffusion of impurity atoms from an external medium can, under certain conditions, give rise to activation of grain-boundary sliding, and, as a consequence, to creep acceleration in polycrystalline metals and alloys. It has been shown that this effect occurs in materials with bcc-, fcc-, and hcp-lattices and is manifested under the diffusion regime В 1 (according to a classification given in [1]) or under conditions close to this regime [2,3].According to the classification cited, diffusion processes for an immobile grain boundary (GB) in a bicrystal could be classified into five types: С, В 1 , В 2 , В 3 , and В 4 [1]. Under regimes С and В 1 , diffusion is largely non-stationarywhere i b с in the impurity concentration in GB and t is the time of diffusion annealing). Under regime С, diffusion of impurity occurs along GBs only. Under regime В 1 , a GB is being filled with impurity atoms while there is already an outflow of the impurity from the boundary into the bulk. Regime В 2 is characterized by a fast variation in impurity concentration in the sub-boundary regions ( i / 0 v c t ∂ ∂ ≠ , where i v с in the impurity concentration in the bulk of a grain). Regimes В 3 and В 4 correspond to volume diffusion. It should be noted that in the case of regimes В 2 , В 3 and В 4 , there is no variation in the impurity concentration in GBs ( i / 0 b с t ∂ ∂ = ) (quasi-stationary diffusion regimes). A formal characteristic evidencing the presence of this regime or the other is the value of asymptotic parameters λ and ν [1]where β is the GB diffusion width and D v and D b are the coefficients of grain-boundary and volume diffusion, respectively. Within recent years, it has been found out for submicrocrystalline (SMC) materials (grain size 0.1-0.5 µm) that the experimental temperature interval of manifestation of creep acceleration disagrees with the calculated data where В 1 operates for the respective system [4,5]. For instance, the effect under study in a Ni(Cu) system (shown in brackets is the impurity-diffusant) occurs at a temperature that is about 300 о lower than that calculated by the above-cited formulas. The temperature interval of creep acceleration effect for coarse-grained nickel under diffusion f...