Abstract
In order to clarify the fracture and damage mechanism of machines and structure, in-situ observation by atomic force microscopy (AFM) is effective because AFM is capable of visualizing nanoscopic three-dimensional shapes in various environments-air, vacuum, solution and so on. In this investigation, the in-situ AFM observation system for environmentally induced damage under dynamic loading conditions has been developed. The system was applied to nanoscopic damage observations of environmentally induced cracking of a high-strength martensitic stainless steel. The in-situ nanoscopic observation of cracking process was thereby possible. These observations show that the crack tips of environmentally induced cracking, i.e. stress corrosion cracking (SCC), dynamic SCC and cyclic SCC was sharper than those of fatigue crack in dry air.
