“…Similar considerations apply to the period of the crack growth. As (15) shows, in the long-time approximation, the crack grows with a constant velocity that does not depend on its radius, a, and thickness, h. The growth time, t, should now be compared to the characteristic relaxation time, td = a 2 /D, which, contrary to t0, is not a constant but, obviously, has a meaning of the diffusion time scale corresponding to the changing crack radius, a. For t > td, the hydrogen concentration, c, can be considered steady because the diffusion process has enough time to adjust the concentration for every crack growth increment.…”