Intergranular microchemistry and stress corrosion cracking

An important contributory role of grain boundary segregation of residual impurities in the intergranular stress-corrosion cracking of carbon and low alloy steels is proposed. Experimental results are presented of the stress corrosion susceptibility of mild steel in nitrate solution, and in relation to varying grain boundary composition as monitored by Auger electron spectroscopy. The harmfulness of a particular impurity element depends on three factors: its bulk level; its segregation thermodynamics and kinetics resulting in an equilibrium enrichment at the grain boundaries; and its ability to promote electrochemical dissolution of the grain boundary. A hierarchy of impurity elements that exacerbate stress corrosion cracking is presented and correlated with equilibrium oxidation potentials. The results and simple model allow the prediction of the relative harmfulness of impurity elements with respect to intergranular stress corrosion in commercial carbon and low alloy steels from a knowledge of the bulk concentration only. This enables significant improvements in performance to be designed in the alloy by respecifying lower levels of only the one or two highly detrimental impurities.