The stress corrosion cracking of AgAu alloys—I. 1 M perchloric acid solution

Abstract Silver-gold alloys, with gold contents from 2.2 up to 50 at%, are susceptible to stress corrosion cracking (SCC) in 1 M HClO 4 solutions. Cracks are mainly intergranular and there is no evidence of a minimum value of gold content, below which no SCC could be observed. The observations made in the present work contradict the predictions of the available cleavage SCC mechanisms. According to the surface mobility mechanism, up to 15 at% gold, the surface mobility of silver, induced by the environment, is the rate controlling step. For higher gold contents, gold surface mobility starts to play an increasing role, and above 50 at%, it becomes rate controlling.