The failure of titanium under stress in methanol-water-chloride solutions is characterized by a dependence upon the water content. As water in the methanol is increased, cracking of titanium is increasingly detrimental until water has been added in substantial amount to inhibit the cracking process.1,2
The resulting minimum in the curve of time-to-failure plotted against the water content of the methanol has been shown to intensify and its position to shift toward higher water contents when the chloride content was increased from 10−4N NaCl to 10−2N NaCl. Whether the chloride was added as NaCl or HCl was not significant at the 10−2N level.1
However, in current literature, there is some contention as to the necessity for the presence of anything other than liquid methanol to promote cracking in titanium and its alloys. Some investigators were not able to obtain failures within the duration...
