Corrosion Induced Morphology Evolution in Stressed Solids

Corrosion morphology is a key factor that influences the reliability and service life of a structure. As most structures service under stress corrosion, there is a great need to understand the effect of stress on the formation conditions of different morphologies. This paper introduces a numerical method to simulate the evolution of surface morphologies. The results indicate that a corroded surface will become rougher and sharper with an increase in stress, and as a consequence, the corrosion morphology will transfer from a flatter surface to a pit and then a crevice. The critical stress values for different morphologies (crevice, pit, and a flatter surface) were captured. Among the three morphologies, the flatter surface and pit maintain a fixed shape, also known as stable morphology. As stress exceeds a critical value, crevices are generated, and the morphology evolution becomes unstable. On the basis of the simulation results, the influence of morphology on the service life of the structure was evaluated. The corrosion velocity of a rough surface exceeds that of a flat surface, and this reduces the service life of the structure more significantly. With a rise in applied stress, the acceleration of corrosion presents a quadratically increasing relationship with applied stress.