When metallic alloys are exposed to a corrosive environment, porous nanoscale morphologies spontaneously form that can adversely affect the mechanical integrity of engineered structures. This form of stress-corrosion cracking is responsible for the well-known â € season crackingâ €™ of brass and stainless steel components in nuclear power generating stations. One explanation for this is that a high-speed crack is nucleated within the porous layer, which subsequently injects into non-porous parent-phase material. We study the static and dynamic fracture properties of free-standing monolithic nanoporous gold as a function electrochemical potential using high-speed photography and digital image correlation. The experiments reveal that at electrochemical potentials typical of porosity formation these structures are capable of supporting dislocation-mediated plastic fracture at crack velocities of 200 m s â '1. Our results identify the important role of high-speed fracture in stress-corrosion cracking and are directly applicable to the behaviour of monolithic dealloyed materials at present being considered for a variety of applications.
CITATION STYLE
Sun, S., Chen, X., Badwe, N., & Sieradzki, K. (2015). Potential-dependent dynamic fracture of nanoporous gold. Nature Materials, 14(9), 894–898. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4335
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