Corrosion-Fatigue Failure of A Marine Propeller Shaft

An ususually clear example of corrosion-fatigue failure is used as a basis for discussing those forms of fracture in which chemical attack combines with mechanical stress to destroy an engineering structure. The term “mechanochemical” is introduced to cover the entire category of stress-corrosion, corrosion-fatigue, metal-fusion, stress-rupture and related types of attack; and a new fracture terminology is given for precise description of fracture details. A generalized thermodynamic theory is then proposed on the basis of △F = f(T, X, P) where fissuring results from stress-imposed changes in thermodynamic microsystems such as (a) grain boundaries to produce intergranular separations and (b) subgrain or micellar boundaries to produce transgranular cracking.