CHAPTER 10 - ADSORPTION-INDUCED BRITTLE FRACTURE IN LIQUID-METAL ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

Solid metals can be caused to behave in a brittle manner by exposure to a variety of physical or chemical environments. Perhaps the most dramatic examples of such effects, however, result from exposure to surface-active liquid metals. Specimens prestressed above some critical value fail virtually instantly on being wetted by an appropriate liquid metal, and “brittle” crack propagation rates of order 100 cm/sec have been recorded in otherwise ductile metals under such environmental conditions.