Stress corrosion of pre-stressing steel

Stress corrosion is crystalline cracking of metals under tensile stresses in the presence of corrosive agents. Conditions for stress corrosion to take place are that steel is subjected to tensile stresses arising from external loading or internally induced stress (e.g. pre-stressing). Furthermore the presence of corrosive agents is vital to trigger stress corrosion. One of the major features of stress corrosion is the material fractures with no damage observed from outside. Therefore stress corrosion takes place without any obvious warning signs.