The oxidation of a metal sphere is analyzed using a regular perturbation method and an inelastic approach. As shown in our previous work [E.-S. Oh, A diffusional analysis for the oxidation on a plane metal-oxide interface, Chem. Eng. J. 117 (2006) 143-154; E.-S. Oh, A perturbation analysis for the metal oxidation fo cylindrical geometries, J. Chem. Eng. Japan 39 (1) (2006) 57-67], the perturbation analysis provides detailed information on the oxide thickness from the location of both moving metal-oxide and oxide-oxygen (air) interfaces, as well as on the concentration of oxygen in each phase. This is compared to the result numerically calculated in literature [P.B. Entchev, D.C. Lagoudas, J.C. Slattery, Effects of non-planar geometries and volumetric expansion in the modeling of oxidation in titanium, Int. J. Eng. Sci. 39 (2001) 695-714]. In addition, a simple inelastic approach [E.-S. Oh, J.R. Walton, D.C. Lagoudas, J.C. Slattery, Evolution of stresses in a simple class of oxidation problems, Acta Mech. 181 (2006) 231-2551 is applied to calculate the stress distribution developed during the oxidation of the metal sphere. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.