Stress corrosion cracking of an elastic plate

Using methods of reversible and irreversible thermodynamics we explore a stress driven corrosion of elastic plate, the substance of which shows an ability to mass rearrangement. It is demonstrated that the plate-like approach considerably simplifies theoretical analysis of the stress driven rearrangement instability as compared with a more general analysis based on three-dimensional (3D) elasticity theory. Actually, a plate-like approach changes the type of the nonlinearity in the problem leading to a system of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDE) within a fixed domain of independent variables whereas the 3D approach is based on the equations of linear elasticity within an unknown (variable) domain. Only one mechanism of rearrangement-surface diffusion-is taken into account. We also limit ourselves with the simplest model of the plate ignoring the bending energy and the out-of-plane component of the displacements. (C) 1998 Acta Metallurgica Inc.