CAUSTIC CRACKING: Its Occurrence in Steam Boilers Available to Purchase

It has been known for many years that apparently brittle failures of mild‐steel plates and rivets can take place in apparatus used for the concentration of caustic soda. These failures invariably reveal the presence of a network of fine intergranular cracks which have their origin at parts where high concentrations of stress can occur; that is under rivet heads, alongside caulked seams and in the vicinity of welded joints which have not been stress relieved. Failures of a similar type have occurred from time to time in steam boilers, frequently by the formation of fine intergranular cracks in the vicinity of riveted seams.