Abstract: The time-to-failure of mullite ceramics was meajsured as a function of applied stress in air,distilled water and alkaline solution at room temperature, respectively, and the mechanism of stress corrosion cracking was discussed. It is shown that absorption effect is the dominant mechanism at high stress level, while blunting effect is dominant at low stress level. In addition, crack growth parameters in the alkaline solution are different from that in water, which implies that the two media hague different solvability on the hydrate layer.

Key words: stress corrosion, crack growth, mullite ceramics