A novel method of estimation of time to instability of viscoelastic structures has been developed by Dr. C. G. Merrett and has been applied to rings. This theory has applications to the nuclear industry as once the stability of viscoelastic rings is understood, the theory can be expanded to predict the stability of viscoelastic helical coils, which are found in the CANDU nuclear reactor as tight fitting spacers. The theory takes the elastic mechanics of a ring with a uniform pressure load, changes this pressure load to a two point load, applies the elastic-viscoelastic correspondence principle, and then uses Drozdov and Kolmanovskii's stability theory to estimate service life. A computer code using this theory plots the service life of a ring versus viscoelasticity and load.The objective of this project was to verify if the time to instability theory for viscoelastic rings is correct. Multiple polymethyl methacrylate (acrylic) rings were made and tested over a range of loads, and their times to failure were plotted and compared with the theory. Photoelasticity was used with polycarbonate rings to observe the changing stresses in a viscoelastic ring as it crept over time.The tests showed a decrease in life time of the rings as the load was increased from an average of 1774 seconds at 60 N to 203 s at 80 N, whereas the stability theory showed two times to failure over the load range, one being approximately 800s and the other being 35000s. The trend of the decreasing life with increasing load over the load range is clear in the experiments, and the lack of a similar trend in the theory does not appear to be correct. Further refinement of the theory to reflect this trend should be made, but more testing over a greater range of materials, loads and geometries should be performed to better confirm or disprove the theory.ii