Internal oxidation and probabilistic fracture model of irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking in stainless steels

Abstract A probabilistic fracture model is applied to irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking effect, assuming that the oxidized part of stainless steel sample plays an essential role in the crack initiation, propagation and the sample failure. The Weibull statistical distribution of time-to-failures, estimated through the correlation with the statistical distribution of oxide strengths, including both the surface oxide layer and oxidized grain boundaries, fully describe the experimental scatter obtained in the constant load time-to-failure tests. Large failure uncertainties in these type of tests originate from an intrinsic stochastic behavior of the oxide cracking due to subcritical crack propagation process.