“…This result suggests that the grain boundary sliding is likely the dominant rate process for the impression creep of Pb at high punching stresses. For low punching stresses, the activation energy for the rate process is 36 kJ/mol, which is smaller than 65.6 kJ/mol for grain boundary diffusion in Pb and larger than 22.5 ± 7.0 kJ/mol for grain boundary dislocation motion in pure metals [27,28]. It is unclear what is the dominant mechanism controlling the impression creep of Pb at low punching stresses for the conditions used in this work.…”