Many papers have been written on stress corrosion of austenitic stainless steels in chloride containing solutions, but the mechanism governing the crack growth is not yet agreed upon. Most support is given for a mechanism based on anodic dissolution at the crack tip, but an alternative mechanism involving hydrogen embrittlement has been considered.
The purpose of the work described below is mainly to discover if fracture mechanics can be used to study stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of austenitic stainless steels and shed some light on the mechanism of the process.
Stress corrosion studies were performed on AISI Type 316 stainless steel in a test environment of 40% CaCl2 solution at 100 C (212 F). The specimens were 25 mm thick, compact-tension type, and a constant load was applied with a conventional creep testing machine.
After the test was finished, the volume just in front of the crack tip was...
