Type 304 stainless steel is used extensively as a structural material in high temperature aqueous environments. After several years of exposure, this alloy can fail by intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) in 288°C high-purity water, and many chemical and mechanical tests have been used to study its susceptibility to SCC as a function of composition and heat treatment. Practicality requires that these tests dramatically accelerate failure, but the application of accelerated test results to material screening or design criteria depends upon the establishment of correlations between the failure mechanisms of the tests and those which occur in the longer term material application. Since the electrochemical environment at the tip of a growing stress corrosion crack, along with local microstructure and stress intensity, must govern the crack propagation rate, the ability to control this environment and simulate conditions that develop in cracks after long periods under actual operating conditions should simplify the establishment of these correlations and make them more dependable.

Subject
Water, Materials, Tubes, Aqueous environments, Aqueous solutions, Constants, Crevices, Furnaces, Solutions, Mechanical failure, Heat treatment, Stress corrosion cracking, Electrolytes
© 1980 Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of AMPP. Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
1980
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
You do not currently have access to this content.