| Abstract: | We studied the influence of the state of the specimen surface on the electrochemical conditions at the tip of a corrosion fatigue crack and cyclic corrosion crack-growth resistance of 20 steel in distilled water. It was discovered that aluminum-zinc and zinc coatings protect the specimen surface against local anodic dissolution at the tip of the corrosion-fatigue crack and, hence, significantly increase the cyclic corrosion crack-growth resistance of the specimens as compared to the value typical of the specimens without coatings, although the intensity of hydrogen depolarization and, consequently, the probability of hydrogen embrittlement increase in this case. We propose a procedure and electrochemical parameters for the evaluation of the efficiency of protection of the tip of a propagating corrosion-fatigue crack by metallic coatings.Karpenko Physicomechanical Institute, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, L'viv. Translated from Fiziko-Khimicheskaya Mekhanika Materialov, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 14–22, May–June, 1995. |
