Stress Corrosion Cracking of C-Mn Steel in Phosphate Solutions

Annealed C-Mn steel has been shown to fail by transgranular stress corrosion cracking (SCC) in sodium phosphate solutions over a range of potentials and pH's at room temperature. The observed SCC domain is reasonably accurately predicted from fast and slow sweep rate polarization curves. Moreover, the cracking domain boundaries can be calculated with reasonable precision from the thermodynamic properties of the reactants and products involved in the reactions responsible for the various modes of failure at different potentials and pH's.