Implications of the Stress Aging Yield Phenomenon With Regard to Stress Corrosion Cracking

Studies of the stress aging yield phenomenon in alloys susceptible to transgranular stress corrosion cracking indicate that segregation of substitutional atoms to dislocations occurs during a stress corrosion cracking test. The stress-aging phenomenon is always associated with jerky plastic flow (Portevin-Le Chatelier Effect), which indicates further that solute atoms migrate with the moving dislocations. This latter effect is related to transgranular stress corrosion cracking and in some instances to inter granular cracking, because of the change that may be produced in the chemi­cal homogeneity of the alloy surface.