Introduction

The phases of life of a structure may be classified as follows [1]:

Thus, the total life (LT) of a structure is LT = L1+L2+L3+L4. Figure 1 presents a depiction of the degradation process. The regions shown, e.g. 1, 2, 3, and 4, illustrate the portion of life, on the abscissa, and the corresponding growth in discontinuity size plotted schematically on the ordinate. This paper concentrates on the phases L1 and L2. That is, the corrosion process that results in the generation of a specific form of corrosion generating a specific form of discontinuity that is not necessarily a crack like discontinuity, and the development of short cracks and their propagation. The requirement of the community to come up with design methods to deal with corrosion or other degradation, fatigue, creep, and wear, is essential and some of the elements are depicted in Figure 2. This figure illustrates that most of the quantitative methods that have been developed used the concepts of mechanics of materials with an incorporation of fracture mechanics [2].


Review of Pitting Corrosion Fatigue Models, D.W. Hoeppner, V. Chandrasekaran, and A.M.H. Taylor, University of Utah and FASIDE International Inc.