Stress Corrosion Cracking
Stress corrosion cracking is a phenomenon where a synergistic action of corrosion and tensile stress leads to brittle fracture of normally ductile materials at generally lower stress levels. During stress corrosion cracking, the material is relatively unattacked by the corrosive agent, but fine cracks form within it. This process has serious implications on the utility of the material because the applicable safe stress levels are drastically reduced in the corrosive medium. Season cracking and caustic embrittlement are two stress corrosion cracking processes which affected the serviceability of brass cartridge cases and riveted steel boilers respectively.
Read more about this topic: Environmental Stress Fracture
Famous quotes containing the words stress and/or cracking:
“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)