Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) is the formation of brittle cracks in a normally sound material
through the simultaneous action of a tensile stress and a corrosive environment. In most cases,
SCC has been associated with the process of active path corrosion (APC) whereby the corrosive
attack or anodic dissolution initiates at specific localized sites and is focused along specific paths
within the material. In some cases, these are along grain boundaries, in other cases, the path is
along specific crystallographic within the grains. Quite often, SCC is strongly affected by alloy
composition, the concentration of specific corrodent species, and, to a lesser degree, the stress
intensity. In some cases, this latter point may make the use of test methods based on fracture
mechanics concepts difficult to utilize effectively due to excessive crack branching and tendencies
for nonplanar propagation of cracks.
Furthermore, corrosion film characteristics (i.e., passivation) and local anodic attack (i.e.,
depassivation) serve as controlling factors in SCC crack initiation and growth. Therefore,
localized corrosion can promote SCC making exposure geometry and specimen design important
factors. In many cases, mechanical straining or electrochemical inducements such as crevices or
controlled potential are utilized to overcome the problems and uncertainties of SCC initiation so
that the inherent resistance of the material to SCC can be obtained at reasonable test duration
(see Table 1).
Table 1 - Applied Potentials for SCC in Steel Exposed to Various Service Environments
Environment
Nitrate
-250 to +1200
-650 to -550
Hydroxide
Figure 1: Variation of SCC severity as a function of operating stress for one gas
pipeline [1].
There could be a number of reasons for this discrepancy. For example, the presence of residual
stress on the pipe, a result of pipe-making processes, can be quite significant and thus the true
stress in the sites where SCC initiated can be much above the nominal applied stress level. The
stress concentration effect of pipe surface features such as welds and corrosion pits are well
known to act as stress raisers. In fact, a significant portion of SCC failures have been associated
with the welds, as shown in Figure 2.
Laboratory results on the growth of deep SCC cracks demonstrate dramatic effects of pressure
fluctuation. Figure 4 shows typical growth behavior of cracks in a full-scale test. In such tests,
sections of full-size pipes containing sharp fatigue pre-cracks were buried in soil,
Figure 4 Typical growth behavior of cracks during full-scale tests showing the
effect of pressure fluctuation. ("P"- pressure in psi, "S" - static hold period (min.)
and "Dyn" - Dynamic load period (min.))
It should be noted that corrosion grooves, or "linear corrosion" as it is known, forms on pipe
surface when the tape coating wrinkles to form long and narrow pockets of disbandment and the
subsequent corrosion takes on the appearance of the coating wrinkles.
hydrotest. Before the first hydrotest, three cracks showed growth rates in the order of 2.0*10-3
mm/day or about 0.73 mm per year. The highest growth rates of all 15 cracks, of depths generally
between 35 to 50% of the wall thickness of the pipe, was about 0.8*10-3 mm per day after the
test. In fact, two cracks became practically dormant, and their growth rates were not measurable
by the crack detection [DCPD] system. It has been argued that hydrotesting could significantly
increase the crack tip radius, thus reducing the effective mechanical driving force for subsequent
SCC growth. However, in the full-scale study, metallographic examination suggested this is not
the case. Most of the nine cracks examined metallographically following the test program had a
crack tip opening of a few microns, usually less than 5 microns. Therefore, the crack was
essentially a sharp one for
CONCLUSION