Modeling of Stress Corrosion Cracking for Stainless Steel in Acid

medium.

Abstract:

Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) remains as one of the most severe limitations for the use
of austenitic stainless steels on chemical and petrochemical industries. The most
interesting possibilities of macroscopic modeling of stress corrosion testing are provided
by fracture mechanics and continuum damage mechanics. In the case of continuum
damage mechanics, the damage is taken into account through an internal variable related
to the loss of mechanical strength of the system due to the damage. The present paper is
concerned with the modeling of both slow strain rate and constant load tests of austenitic
steels in acid solutions containing sodium chloride at room temperature. In a
phenomenological approach, based upon thermodynamics of continuum solids and
elasto-viscoplastic damage, besides the classical variables (stress, total strain, and plastic
strain), an additional scalar variable related to the damage induced by stress corrosion is
introduced. An evolution law depending on the corrosive environment parameters is
proposed for this damage variable. The model prediction is compared with curves
obtained experimentally considering different strain rates in different solutions showing a
good agreement.

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