The hydrogen embrittlement of metals is caused by the penetration and accumulation of hydrogen atoms inside the metal. The failure of the product due to hydrogen embrittlement is delayed in time and does not occur immediately after its manufacture, but several hours, days, or even weeks later. Therefore, the chances of detecting hydrogen embrittlement when checking the quality of the finished product are very slim. The use of high-strength bolts in industry is associated with the risk of hydrogen embrittlement. This phenomenon poses a threat to the safe use of devices by limiting or completely losing the functionality of the bolt joint. Even a low influence of moisture can trigger failure mechanisms.
The article proposes a method for assessing the risk of hydrogen embrittlement for high-strength bolts in class12.9. For this purpose, bolts made of material grade 32CrB4 were prepared and in a controlled manner the grain flow inconsistency was made, leading in extreme cases to the production of the forging lap. To perform the study, the device proposed by the European Assessment Document (EAD) was adapted to the testing of hydrogen embrittlement of threaded fasteners in concrete. The concrete substrate was replaced with metal spacers that were preloaded with a bolt. The use of the wedge distance under the bolt head led to the generation of two stress states – tensile and compressive, which translated into an increased risk of hydrogen embrittlement. After being tested, the bolts were visually and microscopically inspected to assess potential locations for cracks and hydrogen propagation. As a result of the conducted tests, it was found that the prepared test method allows to assess the resistance or susceptibility of the bolt to threats related to hydrogen embrittlement.

The aeronautical industry is a sector constantly looking for new materials and equipment because of its tendency to expand quickly. The Ti6Al4V titanium alloy is used frequently in the aeronautic, aerospace, automobile, chemical and medical industry because it presents high strength combined with low density (approximately 4.5 g/cm3), good creep resistance (up to 550°C), excellent corrosion resistance, high flexibility, good fatigue and biocompatibility. As a result of these properties, this titanium alloy is considered an excellent material for manufacturing structural parts in the aircraft industry for modern aeronautic structures, especially for airframes and aero-engines. But its use is also problematic because the Ti6Al4V titanium alloy manifests hydrogen embrittlement, by means of hydrides precipitation in the metal. The Ti6Al4V alloy becomes brittle and fractures because of hydrogen diffusion into metal and because titanium hydrides appear and create pressure from within the metal, thus generating corrosion. Because of titanium hydrides, the titanium alloy suffers from reduced ductility, tensile strength and toughness, which can result in fractures of aeronautical parts. This poses a very serious problem for aircrafts. In this paper, rapid hydrogen embrittlement is presented along with XRD, SEM and TEM analysis. Its goal is to detect the presence of titanium hydrides and to spot the initial cracks in the metallic material.

In this study, an electrochemical method was used to permeate hydrogen through annealed DP590 steel under various pre-strain conditions (0-15%). Stress-strain and internal friction-temperature curves of the dual phase (DP) steel were obtained from slow strain-rate tensile tests and internal friction measurements, respectively. The diffusion of interstitial atoms, formation of Cottrell atmospheres, and embrittlement mechanism of DP steel were investigated under different prestress conditions before and after hydrogen permeation. The results show that the tensile strength of DP steel first decreases and then increases and the elongation sharply decreases with increasing pre-strain. The strength and ductility present similar trends with changes in pre-strain before and after hydrogen charging, however, after hydrogen charging, an obvious increase in tensile strength and decrease in elongation are observed. Furthermore, the γ peak amplitude decreases and the Snoek-Ke-Koster (SKK) peak amplitude increases with increasing internal pre-strain according to the friction-temperature curve. The γ peak and SKK peak exhibit the same trends with increasing pre-strain before and after hydrogen charging and both the γ peak and SKK peak decrease with hydrogen charging. The dislocation density in DP steel increases after hydrogen charging.

The present research deals with the effect of pre-strain on the hydrogen embrittlement behavior of intercritically annealed medium-Mn steels. A slow strain-rate tensile test was conducted after hydrogen charging by an electrochemical permeation method. Based on EBSD and XRD analysis results, the microstructure was composed of martensite and retained austenite of which fraction increased with an increase in the intercritical annealing temperature. The tensile test results showed that the steel with a higher fraction of retained austenite had relatively high hydrogen embrittlement resistance because the retained austenite acts as an irreversible hydrogen trap site. As the amount of pre-strain was increased, the hydrogen embrittlement resistance decreased notably due to an increase in the dislocation density and strain-induced martensite transformation.

This study explores the hydrogen embrittlement behaviour of two Ni-based superalloys using electrochemical hydrogen charging. Two types of tensile specimens with different geometry for the Haynes 617 and Hastelloy X alloys were electrochemically hydrogen-charged, and then a slow strain rate test was conducted to investigate the hydrogen embrittlement behaviour. Unlike the ASTM standard specimens, two-step dog-bone specimens with a higher surface-area-to-volume ratio showed higher sensitivity to hydrogen embrittlement because hydrogen atoms are distributed mostly on the surface area. On the other hand, the Haynes 617 alloy had a lower hydrogen embrittlement resistance than that of the Hastelloy X alloy due to its relatively large grain size and the presence of precipitates at grain boundaries. The Haynes 617 alloy primarily showed an intergranular fracture mode with cracks from the slip band, whereas the Hastelloy X alloy exhibited a combination of transgranular and intergranular fracture behavior under hydrogen-charged conditions.

This study describes how microstructural constituents affected the hydrogen embrittlement resistance of high-strength pipeline steels. The American Petroleum Institute (API) X60, X70, and X80 pipeline steels demonstrated complicated microstructure comprising polygonal ferrite (PF), acicular ferrite, granular bainite (GB), bainitic ferrite (BF), and secondary phases, e.g., the martensite-austenite (MA) constituent, and the volume fraction of the microstructures was dependent on alloying elements and processing conditions. To evaluate the hydrogen embrittlement resistance, a slow strain rate test (SSRT) was performed after electrochemical hydrogen charging. The SSRT results indicated that the X80 steel with the highest volume fraction of the MA constituent demonstrated relatively high yield strength but exhibited the lowest hydrogen embrittlement resistance because the MA constituent acted as a reversible hydrogen trap site.