Strain-driven corrosion crack growth - A pilot study of intergranular stress corrosion cracking

This work proposes a model for corrosion driven crack growth. The model poses a moving boundary problem, where a chemical attack removes material from the body. The rate of the chemical attack is a function of the strain along the body surface. No crack growth criterion is needed for the analysis. A finite strain formulation is used and the material model is assumed hyperelastic. The problem is stated for a large body, containing a large crack. A low frequency cyclic loading is considered. Thus, corrosion is assumed to dissolve material with a rate approximately proportional to the strain rate. The problem is solved using finite element method based program, enhanced with a procedure handling the moving boundary. Parametric studies are performed for a series of different initial shapes of the near-tip region. Presented results show that the crack growth rate is largely dependent on the initial crack geometry. For a set of initial shapes and load levels steady-state conditions of growth are achieved, while for the others the cracks show tendency to branch. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.