Foreword: International Symposium on the Stress Corrosion Cracking in Structural Materials at Ambient Temperatures

Stress corrosion cracking of the high-strength martensitic steel AISI 4340 (yield stress = 1503 MPa) in NaCl aqueous solutions of different concentrations was studied experimentally using compact tension specimens in free corroding conditions. The experiments were conducted under the controls of constant load, constant crack opening displacement (COD), constant loading rate, and constant COD rate. Despite the differences in controlling conditions, the experiments yielded similar results for the threshold stress intensity factor and the plateau velocity in the 3.5 wt pct NaCl solution. Dependence of the plateau velocity on the NaCl concentration was observed, whereas the values of the threshold stress intensity factors seem to be independent of the NaCl concentration in distilled water.