A new electrochemical method for identification of the qechanism of corrosion fatigue crack growth (FCG) has been proposed. The qethod is based on the discovered regularity of an ambiguous effect of short-term cathodic polarization on the corrosion FCG rates. The regularity is a common one for high strength steels, titanium alloys and magnesium alloy tested, and it implies that short-term cathodic polarization accelerates the corrosion FCG by several times, when maximum stress intensity K and corresponding FCG rate exceed certain critical values, but when K and corresponding FCG rate are lower than the critical values, the same cathodic polarization (with all other conditions being equal) retards or does not almost influence the corrosion FCG. It is concluded that the accelerated crack growth at cathodic potentials is due to hydrogen-induced cracking (HIC) appearance. Therefore, the critical values of K and corresponding FCG rate are regarded as the ones corresponding to the beginfi!fig of corrosion FCG according to HIC mechanism.
Keywords: high strength steels, titanium alloys, magnesium alloys, corrosion fatigue crack growth, cathodic polarization, fracture surface, hydrogen induced cracking, stress ratio.