Stress corrosion cracking hydrogen embrittlement

Dautovich, D. P. and Floreen, S., "The Stress Corrosion and Hydrogen Embrittlement Behavior of Maraging Steels, Stress Corrosion Cracking and Hydrogen Embrittlement of Iron Base Alloys, NACE-5, R. W. Staehle, et al., Eds., NACE, Houston, TX, 1971, pp. 798-815. 

Toh, T. and Baldwin, W. M., "Ductility of Steel with Vaiying Concentrations of Hydrogen, Stress Corrosion Cracking and Embrittlement, W. D. Robertson, Ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1956, pp. 176-186. 

Cracking mechanisms in which corrosion is implicated include stress corrosion cracking, corrosion fatigue, hydrogen-induced cracking and liquid metal embrittlement. Purely mechanical forms of cracking such as brittle failure are not considered here. 

Stress Corrosion Cracking and Hydrogen Embrittlement of Iron Base Alloys, NACE, Houston, Texas, (1975)... 

Despite considerable developments in the study of stress-corrosion cracking mechanisms in recent years, it remains difficult to draw a clear distinction between those situations which involve hydrogen embrittlement, and those... 

Later work on aluminium alloys has also focused more closely upon the role of hydrogen which had not previously been widely considered as an embrittling species in the stress-corrosion cracking process for these alloys. The idea was not new, however. Reports of intergranular failure under cathodic charging conditions had been made at a much earlier time . A reduction in stress-corrosion life and alloy ductility in a high purity Al-5Zn-3Mg alloy had been found in specimens pre-exposed to a 2% NaCI solution" , an effect that was accentuated if specimens were stressed". ... 

In more recent work embrittlement in water vapour-saturated air and in various aqueous solutions has been systematically examined together with the influence of strain rate, alloy composition and loading mode, all in conjunction with various metallographic techniques. The general conclusion is that stress-corrosion crack propagation in aluminium alloys under open circuit conditions is mainly caused by hydrogen embrittlement, but that there is a component of the fracture process that is caused by dissolution. The relative importance of these two processes may well vary between alloys of different composition or even between specimens of an alloy that have been heat treated differently. 

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