Environmentally Assisted Crack Growth in Structural Alloys: Perspectives and New Directions.
Abstract
Environmentally assisted crack growth (namely, stress corrosion cracking and corrosion fatigue) in alloys is one of the principal determining factors for durability and reliability of engineering structures. Over the past 20 years, activities in this area have transformed from principally that of screening and qualitative characterizations of the phenomena, to that of quantitative assessment and scientific understanding. This work has enabled the recent development of life prediction procedures. In this paper, the contributions of fracture mechanics in this transformation are reviewed. Current mechanistic understanding and environmentally assisted crack growth by hydrogen embrittlement is summarized, and is placed in perspective. Applications to mitigate stress corrosion and corrosion fatigue cracking in marine environments are summarized. Some outstanding issues and new directions for research are discussed. Keywords: Crack propagation, aluminum alloys; titanium alloys; steels; corrosion fatigue; fracture mechanics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA190137
Entities
People
- Richard P. Gangloff
- Robert P. Wei
Organizations
- Lehigh University