This article describes the incubation, nucleation, and propagation of stress-corrosion cracking and how to evaluate it using standard tests. It discusses constant-strain, constant-load, bending, and uniaxial tension testing and how they compare when evaluating smooth and precracked test specimens under elastic-strain, plastic-strain, and residual-stress conditions. The article provides guidance on specimen selection and preparation, strain rate, and test equipment. It also examines service and laboratory test environments and provides detailed information on how to test various steels and alloys and how to interpret test results.

The separation of the fatigue process into crack initiation and propagation phases has been an important and useful advance in engineering. The combined approach of strain-control testing and the development fracture mechanics of fatigue crack growth rates is a key advance that allows better understanding and simulation of both crack nucleation and the subsequent crack growth mechanisms. This article reviews three basic types of fatigue properties: stress-life, strain life, and fracture mechanic crack growth.

High strain rate testing is important for many engineering structural applications and metalworking operations. This article describes various methods for high strain rate testing. Several methods have been developed, starting with the pioneering work of John Hopkinson and his son, Bertram Hopkinson. Based on these contributions and also on an important paper by R.M. Davies, H. Kolsky invented the split-Hopkinson pressure bar, which allows the deformation of a sample of a ductile material at a high strain rate, while maintaining a uniform uniaxial state of stress within the sample.

Stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) occurs under service conditions, which can result, often without any prior warning, in catastrophic failure. Hydrogen embrittlement is distinguished from stress-corrosion cracking generally by the interactions of the specimens with applied currents. To determine the susceptibility of alloys to SCC and hydrogen embrittlement, several types of testing are available. This article describes the constant extension testing, constant load testing, constant strain-rate testing for smooth specimens and precracked or notched specimens of SCC. It provides information on the cantilever beam test, wedge-opening load test, contoured double-cantilever beam test, three-point and four-point bend tests, rising step-load test, disk-pressure test, slow strain-rate tensile test, and potentiostatic slow strain-rate tensile test for hydrogen embrittlement.