Stress corrosion cracking of several solution heat-treated Mg–X alloys

•Stress corrosion cracking of binary Mg alloys in distilled water was studied.•Mg5Zn and Mg0.3Ca suffered the most serious transgranular stress corrosion cracking.•The other binary Mg alloys suffered some stress corrosion cracking.

The stress corrosion cracking (SCC) behaviour of solution heat-treated as-cast Mg0.1Zr, Mg1Mn, Mg0.1Sr, Mg0.3Si, Mg5Sn, Mg5Zn and Mg0.3Ca in distilled water (DW) was studied using the linearly increasing stress test (LIST). SCC susceptibility was related to the stress rate for all the Mg–X alloys except for Mg0.1Sr. At ∼7.0 × 10−4 MPa s−1, Mg0.3Si and Mg5Sn were immune to SCC; Mg0.1Zr, Mg1Mn and Mg0.1Sr suffered medium SCC; Mg5Zn and Mg0.3Ca suffered relatively more serious SCC. At ∼7.0 × 10−5 MPa s−1, Mg5Zn and Mg0.3Ca suffered the most serious transgranular SCC, whilst the other Mg–X alloys suffered medium SCC.