Over the past three decades, several plausible mechanisms have been proposed to explain the initiation and propagation characteristics of stress corrosion cracks. Each of these mechanisms is intuitively satisfying, to some degree, so long as they are viewed from a qualitative standpoint. However, their quantitative aspects have for the most part remained obscure.
In a previous paper (“Computer Simulation of Stress Corrosion Cracking,” Corrosion, 27, 84 (1971), hereafter referred to as CSSCC), some possible quantitative implications of the electrochemical oxidation mechanism were revealed by computer simulation of crack growth through a homogeneous, isotropic, elastic material. Since the appearance of CSSCC, the author has received numerous comments regarding the formalism utilized therein. The general tenor of these comments indicates that: (a) CSSCC does not adequately define the problem of mathematical simulation, and (b) CSSCC apparently provides a misleading explanation of the formalism advocated by the author for the analytical...
