Development of a Method for Assessing the Susceptibility of Materials to Corrosion Cracking

A new diagnostic method is proposed that allows us, under conditions of direct operation, to carry out an express assessment of the tendency of steels and alloys toward stress corrosion cracking (delayed destruction) by analyzing the microhardness of their structural components. It is shown that the convergence of the results obtained during experimental studies is maximum for steels and alloys prone to stress corrosion cracking. The limitations of the proposed method of accelerated testing of metal structures for assessing their crack resistance in terms of application to steels and alloys prone to the development of crack-like defects are established.