Environmental Crack Driving Force

The effect of environment on the crack driving force is considered, first by assuming quasistatic extension of a stationary crack and second, by use of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) crack growth rate models developed previously by this author and developed further here. A quasistatic thermodynamic energy balance approach, of the Griffith-Irwin type, is used to develop stationary crack threshold expressions, \( \tilde{J}_{\rm c} \), which represent the conjoint mechanical and electrochemical conditions, below which stationary cracks are stable. Expressions for the electrochemical crack driving force (CDF) were derived using an analysis that is analogous to that used by Irwin to derive his “strain energy release rate,” G, which Rice showed as being equivalent to his mechanical CDF, J. The derivations show that electrochemical CDFs both for active path dissolution (APD) and hydrogen embrittlement (HE) mechanisms of SCC are simply proportional to Tafel’s electrochemical anodic and cathodic overpotentials, η _a and η _c, respectively. Phenomenological SCC models based on the kinetics of APD and HE crack growth are used to derive expressions for the kinetic threshold, J _scc, below which crack growth cannot be sustained. These models show how independent mechanical and environmental CDFs may act together to drive SCC crack advance. Development of a user-friendly computational tool for calculating Tafel’s overpotentials is advocated.