Abstract
Stress corrosion cracking as encountered in oil production is discussed as two problems: sulfide corrosion cracking and sweet corrosion cracking. Brief review of the literature is included.
A new test method is given which uses a notched ring loaded to different percentages of yield deformation. Also includes simple polished beam specimen test methods. Tabular data is given on hardness, applied stress and time-to-failure obtained in a saturated H2S-brine system using J-55 and N-80 steels. Concludes that any steel will suffer sulfide corrosion cracking above given hardness limits and that these limits depend on applied stress.
Tests to reproduce failures in sweet systems are reported. Conclusion is drawn that sweet cracking failures are sulfide cracking at low H2S concentrations and that time-to-failure is an inverse function of the H2S concentration. 3.2.2