Elastic and plastic strains and the stress corrosion cracking of austenitic stainless steels. Progress report, April 30, 1977--December 30, 1977

A newly developed test environment based on NaCl, Na/sub 2/SO/sub 4/, and HCl has provided some insight to several aspects of SCC in a transformable austenitic stainless steel. Current vs. time curves indicated the presence of the formation of a ''protective'' film which drastically reduced the anodic current leading to failure. This film, not indicated by the polarization curves, is subject to highly localized damage such as pitting. Thus, although it allows only very small corrosion currents, it is not truly protective. Hence, it is pseudo-passive. The critical cracking potential did not exhibit any difference between the annealed and the maximum (25%) deformation examined. The corrosion or open circuit potential for both annealed and deformed material behaved in a similar manner, becoming more noble with time until it reached the critical cracking potential and SCC ensured. The failure time for the deformed specimens was substantially shorter than for the annealed ones, but the incubation time was essentially the same. Within the range of experimental conditions examined thus far, it appears that the critical parameters leading to SCC in a chloride environment are primarily dependent on surface-environment interactions and not dependent on the bulk properties