The influence of biaxial loading on branching of a dissolution driven stress corrosion crack

Stress corrosion cracking occurs due to the synergistic interaction between mechanical load and corrosion reactions. In this study, branching during anodic dissolution driven crack growth is studied using an adaptive FE procedure. The crack has an inherent blunt tip due to the dissolution, and the growth is treated as a moving boundary problem with a strain-assisted evolution law. Simulations are performed with different degrees of load biaxiality. It is found that increasing biaxiality promotes branching. No conditions for when branching takes place are found. Crack growth rates for branches are investigated, and it is found that, after an initial acceleration, constant growth rates can be reached, as well as decreasing speed and eventual arrest. The influence of T-stresses and perturbations sensitivity are discussed.